<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> <feed xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom" xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/"> <title>www.dharmaoverground.org</title> <link rel="alternate" href="http://www.dharmaoverground.org/web/guest/testblog" /> <link rel="self" href="http://www.dharmaoverground.org/web/guest/testblog/-/blogs/rss" /> <subtitle>www.dharmaoverground.org</subtitle> <id>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/web/guest/testblog/-/blogs/rss</id> <updated>2014-10-19T02:16:49Z</updated> <dc:date>2014-10-19T02:16:49Z</dc:date> <entry> <title>The Big Issues</title> <link rel="alternate" href="http://www.dharmaoverground.org/web/guest/testblog/-/blogs/the-big-issues" /> <author> <name>Daniel M. Ingram</name> </author> <id>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/web/guest/testblog/-/blogs/the-big-issues</id> <updated>2009-09-21T21:59:51Z</updated> <published>2009-09-21T21:59:00Z</published> <summary type="html">&lt;p&gt;&lt;span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: normal; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); "&gt;&lt;span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small; "&gt;Here is an article dedicated to public debate of the big issues that impede straightforward, open, honest, down-to-earth, empowering dharma. There are so many different angles on these problems that no listing could possibly be complete, but we welcome public comment on these issues so that they may be made clear, various positions may be elucidated, and public consciousness regarding how the broad dream of the Dharma Overground contrasts with what actually happens. We expect this site to be a bit of a mess, and in being so, prove certain points. Please, in the spirit of open discussion, please feel free to post a thread or response to any of the below-listed issues or any that are related that you wish to see addressed here. Let the games begin!&lt;/span&gt;&lt;div id="WPC-area?cellId=The+Big+Issues&amp;amp;version=5&amp;amp;savePath=%2Fpage%2FThe%2BBig%2BIssues&amp;amp;saveType=page" class="WPC-editableContent" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 1px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 1px; border-top-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-color: initial; overflow-x: visible; overflow-y: visible; min-height: 300px; "&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small; "&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Some Big Issues:&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;1) Taboos: When most practitioners and teachers talk about actual attainments, the reactions people have to these vary from frank disbelief, anger, fear, jealousy, confusion, comparison, self-doubt, doubt about the speaker, to wild positive projections, such as that this person must be amazing, sane, widely knowledgeable, trustworthy, have magical powers, etc. Such reactions and projections typically cause most practitioners to not discuss these things, which leads to more confusion, projection, doubt, speculation, etc.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;2) Faulty Expectations: Most people's maps of what spiritual practice leads to are simply radically out of touch with reality. These faulty maps include the territory of meditation and the territory of awakening. This is due to many factors, among these being lack of knowledge of the traditional, dogmatic maps, the often very poor quality of the traditional, dogmatic maps when people do know them, lack of access to more accurate, verified maps, the strange messages of popular culture around these issues, and often people's own unexamined projections about how they are sure that meditation must lead to certain things and couldn't possibly lead to other things.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;3) Hierarchy: There is a hierarchy in one sense in the meditative world, in that there are people who have attained to various levels of meditation states, insight stages, and levels of what might be called awakening, enlightenment, etc. This is simply true. However, the various traditions have widely different reactions as to what to do with this, with some giving people great benefits from this, including titles, costumes, money, power including possibly political power and within control of the spiritual community, and possibly many other benefits. Other traditions emphasize a more down-to-earth approach, emphasizing that people should simply be there if they wish to share with others what they know so as to help those others develop it for themselves.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;4) Development: There are those who argue that you can't have open, straightforward dharma in the way envisioned by the Dharma Overground because people are at different stages of development. Some are stuck at the magical phase, thinking that angels will save them or some such thing, others are stuck on rites and rituals, others are true-believers in whatever religious dogma and thus stuck there, others haven't had enough experience with meditation to handle disclosures of real attainments and must be kept from honest, open dharma conversations, others feel that disclosing real attainments just causes power struggles and chaos and so all should be kept quiet. The counter argument is that just about everyone who is into this stuff are adults to some degree, most have the capacity for rational thought, and to dumb down meditation culture to serve and perpetuate the lowest common denominator of meditation culture is a gross disservice to those who would thrive if given the real, uncensored deal.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;It should be clear from these descriptions which side of the things the Dharma Overground team tend to fall, but there is still room for debate and discussion, so let it roll!&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;</summary> <dc:creator>Daniel M. Ingram</dc:creator> <dc:date>2009-09-21T21:59:00Z</dc:date> </entry> <entry> <title>Causal vs Acausal Clarity</title> <link rel="alternate" href="http://www.dharmaoverground.org/web/guest/testblog/-/blogs/causal-vs-acausal-clarity" /> <author> <name>Daniel M. Ingram</name> </author> <id>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/web/guest/testblog/-/blogs/causal-vs-acausal-clarity</id> <updated>2009-09-06T06:00:12Z</updated> <published>2009-09-06T05:07:00Z</published> <summary type="html">&lt;p&gt;There has been much debate on the DhO about topics related to clarity and how this relates to such topics as Rigpa and awakening and the like.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;I thought I might add in the distinction between what I will call causal and acausal clarity to help make some sense of it.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Causal clarity is clarity dependent on causes, obviously, and generally refers to specifically high degrees of mindfulness, concentration, investigation, acceptance, etc. such that, at times, dependent on causes, things are very clear in the way we typically think of when we think of the word clarity.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Acausal clarity is that &amp;nbsp;sort of clarity that is not dependent on whether or not things are clear, bright, well perceived, etc. It is the clarity that accepts the level of clarity of sensations however they present, clear or otherwise. Thus, rather than everything being clear, in this case, everything is simply as it is, with some aspects clear and others not so.&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;In this way, acausal clarity is about however reality manifests, and causal clarity is about what happens with strong mind training and attention. The distinction is important, as many people associate causal clarity with awakening and such concepts as Rigpa, where as acausal clarity is actually, at its oxymoronic best, unconditioned reality, pure, straight up, and all encompassing, and thus relates to awakening in a very profound way. Thus, I would argue that causal clarity is the foundation to arive at acausal clarity, which is to say reality as it is.&lt;/p&gt;</summary> <dc:creator>Daniel M. Ingram</dc:creator> <dc:date>2009-09-06T05:07:00Z</dc:date> </entry> <entry> <title>Places to Practice: Tathagata Meditation Center</title> <link rel="alternate" href="http://www.dharmaoverground.org/web/guest/testblog/-/blogs/places-to-practice:-tathagata-meditation-center" /> <author> <name>Dan Bartlett</name> </author> <id>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/web/guest/testblog/-/blogs/places-to-practice:-tathagata-meditation-center</id> <updated>2009-08-07T11:14:21Z</updated> <published>2009-08-07T11:10:00Z</published> <summary type="html">&lt;p&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;&lt;b&gt;Name of Center: &lt;/b&gt;Tathagata Meditation Center (TMC)&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;b&gt;Address: &lt;/b&gt;1215 Lucretia Ave., San Jose, CA 95122&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;b&gt;Phone Number: &lt;/b&gt;&lt;span id="__skype_highlight_id" class="skype_tb_injection" rtl="false" fax="0" reallyisdynflag="1" context="408 294-4536" onmouseout="SkypeSetCallButton(this, 0,0,0);HideSkypeMenu();" onmouseover="SkypeSetCallButton(this, 1,0,0);skype_active=SkypeCheckCallButton(this);" onmousedown="SkypeSetCallButtonPressed(this, 1,0,0)" onmouseup="SkypeSetCallButtonPressed(this, 0,0,0)" info="Call +14082944536;0;+14082944536;0;" isdynflag="1"&gt;&lt;span id="__skype_highlight_id_left" class="skype_tb_injection_left" onmouseover="SkypeSetCallButtonPart(this, 1);" onmouseout="SkypeSetCallButtonPart(this, 0);" title="Skype actions"&gt;&lt;span id="__skype_highlight_id_left_adge" class="skype_tb_injection_left_img" style="background-image: url(chrome://skype_ff_toolbar_win/content/cb_normal_l.gif);"&gt;&lt;img class="skype_tb_img_adge" style="height: 11px; width: 7px;" src="chrome://skype_ff_toolbar_win/content/cb_transparent_l.gif" alt="" /&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span id="__skype_highlight_id_left_img" class="skype_tb_injection_left_img" style="background-image: url(chrome://skype_ff_toolbar_win/content/cb_normal_m.gif);"&gt;&lt;img name="skype_tb_img_f0" class="skype_tb_img_flag" title="" src="chrome://skype_ff_toolbar_win/content/famfamfam/us.gif" style="padding: 0px 1px 1px 0px; width: 16px; top: 0px; left: 0px;" alt="" /&gt;&lt;img class="skype_tb_img_space" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; height: 1px; width: 1px;" src="chrome://skype_ff_toolbar_win/content/space.gif" alt="" /&gt;&lt;img class="skype_tb_img_space" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; height: 1px; width: 1px;" src="chrome://skype_ff_toolbar_win/content/space.gif" alt="" /&gt;&lt;img name="skype_tb_img_a0" class="skype_tb_img_arrow" title="" src="chrome://skype_ff_toolbar_win/content/arrow.gif" alt="" /&gt;&lt;img class="skype_tb_img_space" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; height: 1px; width: 1px;" src="chrome://skype_ff_toolbar_win/content/space.gif" alt="" /&gt;&lt;img class="skype_tb_img_space" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; height: 1px; width: 1px;" src="chrome://skype_ff_toolbar_win/content/space.gif" alt="" /&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;img class="skype_tb_img_space" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; height: 1px; width: 1px;" src="chrome://skype_ff_toolbar_win/content/space.gif" alt="" /&gt;&lt;span id="__skype_highlight_id_right" class="skype_tb_injection_right" onmouseover="SkypeSetCallButtonPart(this, 1)" onmouseout="SkypeSetCallButtonPart(this, 0)" title="Call this phone number in United States of America with Skype: +14082944536"&gt;&lt;span id="__skype_highlight_id_innerText" class="skype_tb_innerText" style="background-image: url(chrome://skype_ff_toolbar_win/content/cb_normal_m.gif);"&gt;&lt;img class="skype_tb_img_space" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; height: 1px; width: 1px;" src="chrome://skype_ff_toolbar_win/content/space.gif" alt="" /&gt;&lt;img class="skype_tb_img_space" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; height: 1px; width: 1px;" src="chrome://skype_ff_toolbar_win/content/space.gif" alt="" /&gt;&lt;img class="skype_tb_img_space" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; height: 1px; width: 1px;" src="chrome://skype_ff_toolbar_win/content/space.gif" alt="" /&gt;&lt;img class="skype_tb_img_space" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; height: 1px; width: 1px;" src="chrome://skype_ff_toolbar_win/content/space.gif" alt="" /&gt;408 294-4536&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span id="__skype_highlight_id_right_adge" class="skype_tb_injection_left_img" style="background-image: url(chrome://skype_ff_toolbar_win/content/cb_normal_r.gif);"&gt;&lt;img class="skype_tb_img_adge" style="height: 11px; width: 19px;" src="chrome://skype_ff_toolbar_win/content/cb_transparent_r.gif" alt="" /&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;b&gt;Website:&lt;/b&gt; &lt;/span&gt;&lt;a target="_blank" rel="nofollow" href="http://www.tathagata.org/" class="external"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;http://www.tathagata.org&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;b&gt;Tradition(s): &lt;/b&gt;Theravada - Burmese&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;b&gt;Technique(s):&lt;/b&gt; Vipassana (Mahasi Style)&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;b&gt;Teacher(s): &lt;/b&gt;Beelin Sayadaw (abbot), Sayadaw U. Pandita, Sayadaw U Jatila, Sayadaw U Kavinda, ...&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;b&gt;Cost:&lt;/b&gt; Mandatory Donation $25 a day&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;b&gt;Accommodations:&lt;/b&gt; Shared Dorm Room, Shared Bathroom &amp;amp; showers&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;b&gt;Facilities: &lt;/b&gt;Single meditation hall recently rebuilt. Walking meditation in the main hall or on the sidewalks outside.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;b&gt;Physical Setting: &lt;/b&gt;Located in San Jose, California (San Francisco Bay Area). There are some street and city sounds however they are not excessive or overly disturbing&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;b&gt;Food (Vegetarian/Vegan/etc.): &lt;/b&gt;Vegetarian usually with vegan selections marked. Most dishes are Vietnamese or Thai and quite good.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;b&gt;Retreat Length(s):&lt;/b&gt; weekend retreats once a month, 14-21 day retreats 3 times a year and one 45 day retreat each year in May&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;b&gt;Typical Schedule:&lt;/b&gt;&lt;br /&gt;4:45 AM Wake Up&lt;br /&gt;5:00 AM Sit&lt;br /&gt;6:00 AM Breakfast&lt;br /&gt;7:00 AM Free time&lt;br /&gt;8:00 AM Sit&lt;br /&gt;9:00 AM Walk&lt;br /&gt;10:00 AM Sit&lt;br /&gt;11:00 AM Lunch&lt;br /&gt;12:00 Free time&lt;br /&gt;1:00 PM Sit&lt;br /&gt;2:00 PM Walk&lt;br /&gt;3:00 PM Sit&lt;br /&gt;4:00 PM Walk&lt;br /&gt;5:00 PM Dharma Talk&lt;br /&gt;6:00 PM Walk &lt;br /&gt;7:00 PM Sit&lt;br /&gt;8:00 PM Walk &lt;br /&gt;9:00 PM Sit &amp;amp; Metta Chant&lt;br /&gt;10:00 PM Bed&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;b&gt;Issues of Taboos around attainment, real practice, disclosing insights, etc.:&lt;/b&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Some teachers basically recite The Progress of Insight in their talks but within interviews the primary focus is on noting moment by moment experience and not what attainment the student has. Once the Sayadaw confirmed I was experiencing Vipassana Jhana and was in Knowledge of Arising and Passing away but mostly the focus is on &amp;quot;what did you experience?&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;how did you note it?&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;b&gt;Issues of Rites/Rituals: &lt;/b&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Bow 3 times when entering and Leaving the meditation hall&lt;br /&gt;Bow 3 times when entering and leaving teacher interview&lt;br /&gt;8 Precepts&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;b&gt;Issues of Proper Dress: &lt;/b&gt;None specified however modest unrevealing clothing is assumed&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;b&gt;Issues of Etiquette:&lt;/b&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Allow teachers to leave before leaving the meditation hall at the end of a sitting&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;b&gt;Issues of Language:&lt;/b&gt;&lt;br /&gt;No issues at the retreat I attended, however I suspect the 6 weeks Sayadaw U Pandita retreat each year has a translator.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;b&gt;Strengths:&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;ul&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;No Nonsense Intensive Mahasi Practice&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;Only Mahasi based retreat center in the US&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;Excellent Food&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;Moderate climate&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;Minimal Boomeritis (new agers)&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;8 precepts&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Weaknesses&lt;/strong&gt;:&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;ul&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;Minimal Integration Guidance&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;8 precepts (depends on who you ask whether this is good or bad)&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;&lt;b&gt;Other Comments:&lt;/b&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;Supported by the local Vietnemese community and generally prefers to stay smaller and more contained. Most yogi's are from the area.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;b&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Overall Impression:&lt;/b&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;Excellent place to make good Insight progress using Mahasi technique without leaving the US&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;b&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Worthy of recommendation on the Dharma Overground?&lt;/b&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;Yes. With the emphasis on noting, continuous mindfullness and progress, TMC is a solid center for goal-oriented practice in the US while avoiding the New Age crowd.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;</summary> <dc:creator>Dan Bartlett</dc:creator> <dc:date>2009-08-07T11:10:00Z</dc:date> </entry> <entry> <title>Realization and Development</title> <link rel="alternate" href="http://www.dharmaoverground.org/web/guest/testblog/-/blogs/realization-and-development" /> <author> <name>Kenneth Folk</name> </author> <id>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/web/guest/testblog/-/blogs/realization-and-development</id> <updated>2009-05-01T12:54:37Z</updated> <published>2009-04-14T12:54:00Z</published> <summary type="html">&lt;p&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;When I was in elementary school it dawned on me that the doctrines of the major religions were mutually exclusive. As such, I reasoned, &lt;i&gt;none &lt;/i&gt;of them were true. The idea that just one of them had the right answer seemed unlikely in the extreme. Surely the truth could not belong to just one tribe. And since the idea of a great bearded fellow in the sky sounded way too much like Santa Claus to me, I decided that I did not know, and was therefore an agnostic. I went to the library and read about agnosticism, and soon came across Friedrich Engels' comment that &amp;quot;an agnostic is really a shamefaced atheist.&amp;quot; Nine-year-old boys do not like to think of themselves as shamefaced, so I immediately resolved to be an atheist.&lt;br /&gt; &lt;br /&gt; One could make the case that a pure Advaita Vedanta teacher who talks about development is a shamefaced Advaitist; it is axiomatic that development is not and cannot be the goal of Advaita. Advaita is only about Realizing what is always already the case. The last thing an Advaita teacher wants is to have his students obsessing about what might happen in the future, as that would only distract them from noticing that their salvation lies in the here and now. Nonetheless, most Advaitists are eventually drawn into a discussion of what might happen if a student continues to follow Advaita. Even Ramana Maharshi, as pure an Advaitist as any, broke down long enough to make some extraordinary comments about development.&lt;br /&gt; &lt;br /&gt; Very reluctantly, after being hectored mercilessly by his students about what would happen if they practiced his &amp;quot;Who am I?&amp;quot; self-enquiry method, Ramana admitted that development does happen. He further asserted that in order for this development to happen, all one had to do was Ramana's own self-enquiry technique. No further practice was required. Then he described the result. I will paraphrase from memory what he said.&lt;br /&gt; &lt;br /&gt; According to Ramana, there is an energy that develops within the body, moving gradually upward with time and practice. It eventually rises out of the crown shakra at the top of the head, curves around, and comes to rest at the heart center, thereby permanently completing the circuit.* This is the best description of arahatship that I have ever heard! This takes &amp;quot;full enlightenment&amp;quot; out of the realm of the speculative and plants it squarely in the realm of, as I call it, the physio-energetic. Arahatship, the logical culmination of development practice, is a normal, organic, human, biological process that is, according to Ramana, Gotama Buddha, and many others, accessible to ordinary people. Once again, the centuries of hero-worship and wishful thinking that grew like barnacles over the core reality of the experience have been shaken off. Ramana, speaking with the simple authority of personal experience, repeatedly denied having supernatural powers, and insisted that anyone could do what he had done.&lt;br /&gt; &lt;br /&gt; *(The above description is paraphrased from &lt;i&gt;Be As You Are: The Teachings of Sri Ramana Maharshi&lt;/i&gt;, edited by David Godwin. I don't have a copy in front of me, but it is available on Amazon.com and is my favorite meditation manual.)&lt;br /&gt; &lt;br /&gt; This is so important, because with these words Ramana asserts that the Advaitist can have his cake and eat it too. By conscientiously inquiring into the thought &amp;quot;Who am I?&amp;quot; the yogi can learn to dwell in primordial awareness, which is, in and of itself, Realization. As a fringe benefit, the yogi can complete his kundalini development and finally be at rest with respect to this energy that many of us feel but that science has not yet found a way to measure.&lt;br /&gt; &lt;br /&gt; If Ramana is correct, this is good news for pure Advaitists. They need not fear missing out on the fruits of development even if they never spend a moment on practices that specifically target development. All that is necessary is to dwell as primordial awareness. By the way, the common denominator between pure concentration practice and dwelling as the &amp;quot;I AM,&amp;quot; is... concentration. Concentration, coupled with insight, leads to developmental enlightenment. Ramana's practice promotes both concentration and insight. All of this makes perfect sense when seen through the lens of the Buddhist maps. The non-dual aspect is, of course, not addressed in Theravada, which is why we have the Mahayana. If Hinayana were complete, there would be no need for Mahayana or Vajrayana.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;</summary> <dc:creator>Kenneth Folk</dc:creator> <dc:date>2009-04-14T12:54:00Z</dc:date> </entry> <entry> <title>Toxic Evangelism, Hardcore Dharma and Relationships</title> <link rel="alternate" href="http://www.dharmaoverground.org/web/guest/testblog/-/blogs/toxic-evangelism-hardcore-dharma-and-relationships" /> <author> <name>Daniel M. Ingram</name> </author> <id>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/web/guest/testblog/-/blogs/toxic-evangelism-hardcore-dharma-and-relationships</id> <updated>2009-05-01T12:53:04Z</updated> <published>2009-04-10T12:51:00Z</published> <summary type="html">&lt;p&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;Most meditation cultures, and particularly those that are more hardcore, and that includes the culture here, have something like the following assumptions:&lt;br /&gt; &lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;ol&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;Knowing the Dharma is good.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;Meditation is good.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;Meditation and knowing the Dharma leads to changes in the mind, insights and abilities that are good.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;Once one has changed the mind in this way, things are better in some way than they were before.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;Thus, meditation mastery makes one better than before.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;/ol&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt; &lt;br /&gt; The problem is not that these are bad assumptions, but their very close shadow sides emerge in relationship to others along these general lines: &lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;div&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;&lt;br /&gt; &lt;/span&gt;&lt;ol&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;I have meditated or meditate and achieved whatever, and so I am better than before.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;As you don&amp;rsquo;t meditate or in my judgement haven&amp;rsquo;t meditated as well as I have or in the specific way I do, I am better than you.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;You can be great like me also, so long as you follow the path that I do as well as I have done it, which anyone with half a brain obviously would.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;Until then, you are not as good as me, and I&amp;rsquo;m gonna let you know that in subtle and overt ways until you get with the program.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;/ol&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt; &lt;br /&gt; This is essentially relationship poison, destructive, counter-productive, toxic, and even small amounts of this sort of self-righteousness and arrogance leads predictably to profound resentment, dysfunction, communication breakdowns, and anger, which in turn often lead to the end of relationships, be they those with friends, family, girlfriends or boyfriends, and spouses/partners. &lt;/span&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;&lt;br /&gt; We, The Great Practitioner, may be so convinced that what they perceive as arrogance is just understandable confidence, and what they perceive as misguided pity is really just natural compassion, but regardless of who is right, the effect is the same. &lt;/span&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;&lt;br /&gt; I know about these things in excruciating detail as I have lived them for years and been caught in these traps many times, so hopefully those reading can benefit from the countless mistakes I have made over the years on these fronts. As is my style, I will tend to describe things in somewhat extreme terms, but realize that they don&amp;rsquo;t tend to be far off most of the time, which is sad but true. &lt;/span&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;&lt;br /&gt; Those in certain stages are particularly prone to toxic evangelism. The Arising and Passing (A&amp;amp;P), aka the 4th ñana, aka the 2nd Vipassana Jhana, is notorious for making people very excited about practice. They have seen amazing things, have profound insights, and are all excited about practice. It is only natural that they will wish to share that with others, and they have a hard time imagining that everyone won&amp;rsquo;t naturally share their enthusiasm right then. This tends to lead to reactions like this: &lt;/span&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;&lt;br /&gt; &lt;/span&gt;&lt;ol&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;While we can see you have had some interesting experience, you seem a bit crazy right now and we are concerned.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;We don&amp;rsquo;t know what to make of your change in behavior and religious zeal.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;You are creeping us out.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;/ol&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt; &lt;br /&gt; The Dark Night states (aka the Dukkha Ñanas, the 3rd Vipassana Jhana, the 5th-10th ñanas, particularly the last two: Desire for Deliverance and Re-Observation), can cause all sorts of problems, particularly coupled with the residual evangelism of the previous stages. The unfortunate practitioner caught in this stage tends to lack the enthusiastic happiness of the A&amp;amp;P, may be somewhat tortured in their practice, may be having problems keeping their career and relationships functioning well, and may yet be very caught in the tendency to evangelize. As they themselves try to muster the internal courage and force needed to get through the Dark Night, they may try to drag everyone around them with them. I call this Dark Night Bleed-through, and it should be avoided like the plague. Unfortunately, the Dark Night by its nature can make avoiding it difficult. &lt;/span&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;&lt;br /&gt; Clearly, those observing them from the outside may not be impressed at best and may be really turned off at worst. Most people simply want to have their ordinary life untroubled by a the vortices of a Dysfunctional Spiritual Quester, and this leads predictably to the following reasonable reactions to all this on the part of the Significant Other, friend or family member: &lt;/span&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;&lt;br /&gt; &lt;/span&gt;&lt;ol&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;You clearly are doing worse because of the Dharma and are screwing your life up.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;You are a pain in the ass to be around.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;While we may love you, we can&amp;rsquo;t stand it when you are like this.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;Get your life together and stop ranting about the Dharma.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;Your arrogance and evangelism is simply pissing us off.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;Shut up about it or go away.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;/ol&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt; &lt;br /&gt; These reactions may have the combined effect of pushing someone who might have been a little into meditation away from it, causing a further widening in the relationship. &lt;/span&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;&lt;br /&gt; Those who have gotten into High Equanimity may have problems related to those who have crossed the A&amp;amp;P, as they have really seen something profound and good, but it rapidly fades, and they tend to fall back into the Dark Night, with the above problems arising again. &lt;/span&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;&lt;br /&gt; Unfortunately, everything is not necessarily better past Stream Entry or whatever you wish to call the first stage of awakening. They REALLY have seen something amazing, suddenly have all sorts of understandings and abilities that they may have a very hard time imagining everyone else wouldn&amp;rsquo;t suddenly want if they were just encouraged and supported in the right way, and yet the reactions tend to be basically the same as above. This can cause understandable frustration in the Stream Enterer, but if people are not into this stuff, they are not into this stuff, and it is the rarest spouse, girlfriend or boyfriend that makes a good teacher or even tolerable zealot from the point of view of their significant other. &lt;/span&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;&lt;br /&gt; The Stink of Enlightenment that can begin to develop around here and into the middle paths can really up the ante on the whole process. As the practitioner becomes more and more powerful in the dharma, this can have the paradoxical but predictable effect of seeming to crush the life out of the spiritual side of their significant other. This is not always the case, and it does happen sometimes that significant others do find something good in the accomplishments of practitioner, but there is absolutely no guarantee this will occur, and reactions tend to vary with time to these things and be a mixed bag.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;This can even occur when both people in the relationship are strong practitioners, as they may progress at different rates, describe and think about their practice differently, and, as they both cycle through A&amp;amp;P events and Dark Night stages and these may have significant effects, instability can still and often does occur. &lt;/span&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;&lt;br /&gt; Even Arahatship, which does a lot to bring things back down to Earth, having ended some aspect of the practitioners spiritual quest and brought some higher degree of realism and normalcy to the life of the practitioner, can still not always free one from these sorts of difficulties, as labels, titles, teaching, and that sort of thing inherently can cause comparison and the related difficulties. &lt;/span&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;&lt;br /&gt; Further, once the &amp;ldquo;I am better than you&amp;rdquo; paradigm is locked in, it can be very difficult to undo. &lt;br /&gt; Thus, my advice in these matters is some appropriately applied and adapted version of the following: &lt;br /&gt; &lt;br /&gt; &lt;/span&gt;&lt;ol&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;Avoid evangelizing to your family and significant others. If they are not into it, the chances of your saying anything making them into it are low and the chances of causing bad reactions is high.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;If you are having weird or unusual experiences and able to compensate for them, keep your mouth shut or speak in very simple, safe terms if people are not really receptive to these things.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;If you are in territory that you can&amp;rsquo;t compensate for, keep your descriptions down to Earth and ordinary when speaking to people who are not hardcore practitioners and seek the guidance and support of those who know this territory.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;/ol&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt; &lt;br /&gt; Most people can handle statements like: &lt;/span&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;&lt;br /&gt; &amp;ldquo;I am feeling a lot of free-floating anxiety lately. I am sorry if this is affecting our relationship, but I am going to work on this, and help me remember to be kind and functional, as I am trying my best and really want things to work out and for us to be happy. I am so grateful for your support in this and let me know how I can support you.&amp;rdquo; &lt;/span&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;&lt;br /&gt; much better than they can handle statements like: &lt;/span&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;&lt;br /&gt; &amp;ldquo;I am plunging into the Dukkha Ñanas, headed for Stream Entry, and thus we should sit 3 hours every day together doing strict vipassana technique and the rest of the time planning for our long retreat!&amp;rdquo; &lt;/span&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;&lt;br /&gt; Last, and perhaps most importantly, let others do their thing whenever possible. Everyone doesn&amp;rsquo;t have to be into the same things you are, and relationships are often more interesting when people aren&amp;rsquo;t. &lt;/span&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;&lt;br /&gt; I am not saying let them do terrible things or crazy things, but so long as their thing is ok, let them do it and support them in it whenever possible, and do your very best to avoid the dark sides of the Spiritual Quest outlined above. If and when you are successful in your practice, you and everyone around you will appreciate you having done so. &lt;/span&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;&lt;br /&gt; I am not saying that there won&amp;rsquo;t be times when we need to end relationships that no longer fit. I am also not saying that the above advice can always be perfectly applied and you are bad if you can&amp;rsquo;t do this, as most of the best practitioners here have probably had some of these difficulties despite their best efforts. However, there is hard-won wisdom in these basic principles and if you are having a hard time in relationships due to your dharma practice, see if something above might help. &lt;/span&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I hope that there will be skillful discussion so that we can figure out good ways to grow in our practice while avoiding these difficulties.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</summary> <dc:creator>Daniel M. Ingram</dc:creator> <dc:date>2009-04-10T12:51:00Z</dc:date> </entry> <entry> <title>Assessing Outsider's Realizations w/ Our Models</title> <link rel="alternate" href="http://www.dharmaoverground.org/web/guest/testblog/-/blogs/assessing-outsider-s-realizations-w-our-models" /> <author> <name>Vincent Horn</name> </author> <id>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/web/guest/testblog/-/blogs/assessing-outsider-s-realizations-w-our-models</id> <updated>2009-04-21T03:43:48Z</updated> <published>2009-04-08T03:38:00Z</published> <summary type="html">&lt;p&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;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&amp;rsquo;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. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;With regards to the first point, on assessing people&amp;rsquo;s degree of realization, who don&amp;rsquo;t openly make claims, I think we would all agree that just because one doesn&amp;rsquo;t make a claim doesn&amp;rsquo;t mean one isn&amp;rsquo;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&amp;rsquo;re kind of putting out there that you know what you&amp;rsquo;re doing (i.e. are enlightened to some degree or another). Of course, that doesn&amp;rsquo;t mean every Rinpoche, roshi, or retreat teacher is. No easy answers, I&amp;rsquo;m afraid. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;What I&amp;rsquo;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&amp;rsquo;t that they can&amp;rsquo;t, just that they can&amp;rsquo;t share those which aren&amp;rsquo;t true. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Anyway, my point here is that even people who don&amp;rsquo;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&amp;rsquo;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. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The next category of teachers are a bit trickier, those who openly claim not to be fully realized (in the Theravada context, it&amp;rsquo;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&amp;rsquo;t remember which) said quite frankly that he wasn&amp;rsquo;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&amp;rsquo;t done it (and of course I had my models about what &amp;ldquo;it&amp;rdquo; 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&amp;rsquo;d be a sweet promotion, right? ;) &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The problem is, and I&amp;rsquo;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&amp;rsquo;s the non-duality model that Daniel has written about or whether it&amp;rsquo;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, &amp;ldquo;Yep, they don&amp;rsquo;t get it.&amp;rdquo; &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;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, &amp;ldquo;I&amp;lsquo;m not an arhant&amp;rdquo; what they&amp;rsquo;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&amp;rsquo;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&amp;rsquo;t. And it may not even be possible, most of the time. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The interesting thing is that if we make this mistake, and begin assessing or dismissing people just because we don&amp;rsquo;t know how they line up with our models, then guess what&amp;hellip; we now have what Daniel calls a &amp;ldquo;specific knowledge model&amp;rdquo; of enlightenment operating. Remember, specific knowledge models are:&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&amp;quot;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.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;We can&amp;rsquo;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&amp;rsquo;t assume that all of them will know that they&amp;rsquo;re done&amp;mdash;that would be to take on a limited-emotional range model that says doubt isn&amp;rsquo;t possible, or at the very best that doubt in our realization is not possible. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;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&amp;rsquo;s that &amp;ldquo;get it,&amp;rdquo; 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.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;And to take this a step further, I&amp;rsquo;d like to challenge even the best and most noble of our models (if we can&amp;rsquo;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 &amp;ldquo;arhants&amp;rdquo; they disagree strongly as to whether this model is the most useful at describing what actually changes w/ enlightenment. (I&amp;rsquo;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&amp;rsquo;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&amp;mdash;i.e. our entire karmic circumstances. Imponderable, indeed. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;And I&amp;rsquo;m not trying to build a meta-theory here, to transcend the wonderful work that Daniel has done on the &amp;ldquo;models of enlightenment.&amp;rdquo; Instead, I&amp;rsquo;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? &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Questions pertaining to this topic:&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;- How do we assess other people&amp;rsquo;s realizations, especially when they don&amp;rsquo;t speak about them openly or use very divergent models to describe them?&lt;br /&gt;- Is it better to dismiss those people who use different models (including those we find unhelpful &amp;amp; unrealistic) or is there a way to learn from them while avoiding the pitfalls associated w/ their models? If so, how?&lt;br /&gt;- Is it possible to both be uncertain about our models and still be pragmatic and support each other&amp;rsquo;s development as contemplatives?&lt;br /&gt;- How should we interact w/ new members who clearly have divergent models than those here (this has happened several times in the past)?&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;</summary> <dc:creator>Vincent Horn</dc:creator> <dc:date>2009-04-08T03:38:00Z</dc:date> </entry> <entry> <title>Bored in Equanimity Waiting for First Path?</title> <link rel="alternate" href="http://www.dharmaoverground.org/web/guest/testblog/-/blogs/bored-in-equanimity-waiting-for-first-path" /> <author> <name>Florian Weps</name> </author> <id>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/web/guest/testblog/-/blogs/bored-in-equanimity-waiting-for-first-path</id> <updated>2009-05-01T13:37:46Z</updated> <published>2009-04-04T13:32:00Z</published> <summary type="html">&lt;p&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;In the chapter about Equanimity in Daniel's Book, there is a sentence I've read countless times by now:&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;From this point enlightenment is likely to be attained quickly as long as the meditator continues to simply practice and gently fine tune their awareness and precision, paying gentle attention to things like thoughts of progress and satisfaction with equanimity.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;p&gt;&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;It seemed encouraging enough the first few times around, but after a while, I got impatient with equanimity. It's pleasant enough, but ... So I tried Kennethsdry insight technique for attaining path a couple of weeks ago. In response to sending him a long description of my experiences with the dry technique, he recommended adding a bit of light, fun concentration to my daily practice, using the breath or a kasina object. I chose the breath, because I'm familiar with breath meditation. A few days later, the &amp;quot;kasina&amp;quot; thread resurfaced, with Guillermo describing his experiences. I'll give this a try after all, I thought, constructed a brown paper kasina using scissors, a saucer and brown paper, and sat staring at it for half an hour one morning. Apart from the usual side-effects of overdoing kasina practice like this the first time (see Guillermo's post for details), and learning that I can see &amp;quot;eyelid colors&amp;quot; even with my eyes open, nothing much seemed to happen.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;Until that evening, that is. When I sat for meditation, I directly entered 4th Jhana, &lt;i&gt;hard&lt;/i&gt;, and &amp;quot;shut the door&amp;quot; behind me for what felt like a very long time, and probably was about fifteen to twenty minutes, before it deflated. With &amp;quot;hard&amp;quot; i don't mean &amp;quot;one-pointed, to the exclusion of everything else&amp;quot; hard, but still distinctly hard.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;Worried that I might &amp;quot;get stuck in Jhana&amp;quot; at this point, I asked Kenneth about it. He explained that the more active, forceful, &amp;quot;dry&amp;quot; technique would yield entry through the dukkha door, while letting 4th jhana/equanimity ripen would be the route through the no-self door. I had some concerns about not investigating enough and sliding back, but these were dispelled: &amp;quot;remember that after a certain point, viz. high equanimity, vipassana and samatha are merged. Vipassana always happens automatically.&amp;quot; (from the &amp;quot;No Dog, Some Dog and the Simplest Thing&amp;quot; thread).&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;After reading a few more of my enthusiastic messages about me hitting hard 4th Jhana yet again several more times, Kenneth asked me if I would write up my thoughts on how I improved my level of concentration to balance out my level of investigation. Here's a very simple analysis of my practice up to now:&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;table width="600" cellpadding="3" align="bottom" class="WPC-edit-style-none WPC-edit-border-none WPC-edit-styleData-color1=%23191919&amp;amp;color2=%23474747"&gt;&lt;tbody&gt;&lt;tr&gt;&lt;td width="33%" class="WPC-edit-borderBottom-solid2px WPC-edit-custom-borderBottom WPC-edit-borderRight-solid WPC-edit-custom-borderRight"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;How long \ What&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/td&gt;&lt;td width="33%" class="WPC-edit-borderBottom-solid2px WPC-edit-custom-borderBottom WPC-edit-borderLeft-solid WPC-edit-custom-borderLeft WPC-edit-borderRight-solid WPC-edit-custom-borderRight"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;Investigation-heavy&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/td&gt;&lt;td width="33%" class="WPC-edit-borderBottom-solid2px WPC-edit-custom-borderBottom WPC-edit-borderLeft-solid WPC-edit-custom-borderLeft"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;Concentration-heavy&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/td&gt;&lt;/tr&gt;&lt;tr&gt;&lt;td width="33%" class="WPC-edit-borderTop-solid2px WPC-edit-custom-borderTop WPC-edit-borderRight-solid WPC-edit-custom-borderRight"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;past 2 years&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/td&gt;&lt;td width="33%" class="WPC-edit-borderTop-solid2px WPC-edit-custom-borderTop WPC-edit-borderLeft-solid WPC-edit-custom-borderLeft WPC-edit-borderRight-solid WPC-edit-custom-borderRight"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;Noting-style sitting meditation, daily&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/td&gt;&lt;td width="33%" class="WPC-edit-borderTop-solid2px WPC-edit-custom-borderTop WPC-edit-borderLeft-solid WPC-edit-custom-borderLeft"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/td&gt;&lt;/tr&gt;&lt;tr&gt;&lt;td width="33%" class="WPC-edit-borderRight-solid WPC-edit-custom-borderRight"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;past twelve months&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/td&gt;&lt;td width="33%" class="WPC-edit-borderLeft-solid WPC-edit-custom-borderLeft WPC-edit-borderRight-solid WPC-edit-custom-borderRight"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;Noting-style walking meditation, whenever I walk, and also dedicated walking &amp;quot;sessions&amp;quot;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/td&gt;&lt;td width="33%" class="WPC-edit-borderLeft-solid WPC-edit-custom-borderLeft"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/td&gt;&lt;/tr&gt;&lt;tr&gt;&lt;td width="33%" class="WPC-edit-borderRight-solid WPC-edit-custom-borderRight"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;past four months&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/td&gt;&lt;td width="33%" class="WPC-edit-borderLeft-solid WPC-edit-custom-borderLeft WPC-edit-borderRight-solid WPC-edit-custom-borderRight"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;Keeping a body part in mind during the day, recalling how it feels as often as I can&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/td&gt;&lt;td width="33%" class="WPC-edit-borderLeft-solid WPC-edit-custom-borderLeft"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/td&gt;&lt;/tr&gt;&lt;tr&gt;&lt;td width="33%" class="WPC-edit-borderRight-solid WPC-edit-custom-borderRight"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;past four weeks&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/td&gt;&lt;td width="33%" class="WPC-edit-borderLeft-solid WPC-edit-custom-borderLeft WPC-edit-borderRight-solid WPC-edit-custom-borderRight"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/td&gt;&lt;td width="33%" class="WPC-edit-borderLeft-solid WPC-edit-custom-borderLeft"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;Gazing at a kasina&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/td&gt;&lt;/tr&gt;&lt;/tbody&gt;&lt;/table&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;Even taking into account that investigation will exercise concentration, the lack of balance is quite obvious. Kenneth alluded to the &lt;a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liebig%27s_law_of_the_minimum"&gt;Liebig Minimum&lt;/a&gt;, which is a model of plant growth, how short supply of just one essential nutrient will limit growth even if all the other essential nutrients are plentiful. Liebig himself used the image of a barrel with staves of uneven length: the capacity of the barrel is limited by the shortest stave.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;It's the same story as with the five spiritual faculties. If Wisdom and Faith are out of balance, or Energy and Concentration, progress is not smooth. Same with concentration and investigation. If one is in short supply, growth is stunted, a plateau can result.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;I hope this will help some of those who, like myself, are sitting in equanimity prior to first path. I'd also love it if those with more experience would chime in.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;</summary> <dc:creator>Florian Weps</dc:creator> <dc:date>2009-04-04T13:32:00Z</dc:date> </entry> <entry> <title>Singular vs Multiple Types of Awakening</title> <link rel="alternate" href="http://www.dharmaoverground.org/web/guest/testblog/-/blogs/singular-vs-multiple-types-of-awakening" /> <author> <name>Daniel M. Ingram</name> </author> <id>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/web/guest/testblog/-/blogs/singular-vs-multiple-types-of-awakening</id> <updated>2009-05-01T13:30:04Z</updated> <published>2009-03-27T13:29:00Z</published> <summary type="html">&lt;p&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;There are multiple age-old debates within Buddhism and between Buddhism and some of the other insight traditions about whether or not everyone gets to the same realization in the end if they take things far enough. While this tends to break down along No-Self vs. True Self lines, there are actually many other varieties of subtle and overt conflict between the traditions and theories. &lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;&lt;br /&gt; I should state from the beginning that I am biased towards answering the question this way: &amp;ldquo;There are multiple paths to the same fundamental understanding, and that fundamental understanding may be expressed various ways, but that doesn&amp;rsquo;t change the basic fact of what that fundamental understanding is. That said, the different techniques, approaches and emphases may produce different peripheral skill sets and appreciations of things along the way as well as different shadow sides and problems.&amp;rdquo; &lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;div&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;&lt;br /&gt; However, plenty of very smart, highly realized beings have explicitly stated otherwise. &lt;/span&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;&lt;br /&gt; Some of the classic debates are the following:&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;ul&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;The Buddha clearly put his understanding above all others except previous and future Buddhas, stating that he was an arahat but one better, having not just completely understood the truth of things, as arahats had, but completely understood &amp;ldquo;to the very end&amp;rdquo;, whatever that means.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;The Tibetans routinely bust on arahats as having a lower level of realization than those who follow a Mahayana or Vajrayana path, stating that they need to be awakened by bodhisattvas after they die so as to continue the path of universal service and awakening.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;There is constant conflict between the sudden realization schools of Zen and the progressive schools, with some Zen schools stating that their first hit of realization was the last one and it was somehow different from those who are arahats while at the same time being exactly the same as the Buddhas. Theravadans tend to think they just got stream entry if they were lucky or just crossed the A&amp;amp;P if they are not, but the Zen kids definitely seem to be saying that in one hit they got the whole thing and a different thing, which is in marked contrast to the progressive models.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;The descriptions of certain aspects of the Hindu models, which tend to emphasize things like The I Am,The Eternal Watcher, and the like is markedly different in some ways from the more classic emptiness, no-self, absolute transience models of the Theravadans. The Tibetans tend to walk back and forth between these two, with concepts like Shunyata contrasted with concepts like Maha Ati, with seemingly conflicting emphases on transience and absolute stability.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;There area all sorts of debates about the relative implications of the models of awakening, as I outline in MCTB, with some schools promising little and others promising amazing things, including profound morality, powers and even things like omniscience.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;div&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt; As there have been some undercurrents here regarding these issues that have run through some other threads, I thought we should have a place to debate these things more formally and specifically, so that the points of controversy and convergence may be known. &lt;/span&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;&lt;br /&gt; These are not just esoteric debates. They have real and profound implications for practice. &lt;/span&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;&lt;br /&gt; The Theravadans would say things like: &amp;ldquo;The teachings of parallel or divergent tracks are all preposterous. Reality is the way reality is, and you understand this or you don&amp;rsquo;t. Further the teachings of anything being stable are dangerous traps that cause people to artificially solidity things into jhanic states and cause anagamis to get caught in their fantastic dreams of some subtle transcendent but eternal emptiness-self and thus not finally crack the thing.&amp;rdquo; &lt;/span&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;&lt;br /&gt; The more non-dual traditions might reply, &amp;ldquo;Bahut pagalpan hai! (This is much madness!) You emptiness and transience fixated kids miss something profound and have no idea what you are talking about. We have the true teaching and the true path and understanding, while you miss out on something great. This is the true path of love and light.&amp;rdquo; &lt;/span&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;&lt;br /&gt; Thus, in the spirit of the Dharma Overground, I encourage this difficult and age-old topic to be debated with skill and vigor, with an eye to how it actually impacts both the practice and the result. When possible, keep it focused on what you actually know and what we can actually do and how to do it.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</summary> <dc:creator>Daniel M. Ingram</dc:creator> <dc:date>2009-03-27T13:29:00Z</dc:date> </entry> <entry> <title>Assessing Each Other's Practice</title> <link rel="alternate" href="http://www.dharmaoverground.org/web/guest/testblog/-/blogs/assessing-each-other-s-practice" /> <author> <name>Daniel M. Ingram</name> </author> <id>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/web/guest/testblog/-/blogs/assessing-each-other-s-practice</id> <updated>2009-05-01T12:51:17Z</updated> <published>2009-03-26T12:50:00Z</published> <summary type="html">&lt;p&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;As this is explicitly a map and attainment oriented site, it is inevitable that people will be evaluating each other&amp;rsquo;s posts and practice and making judgements and comparisons to their own practive. This is normal and often healthy, but there is a flip side to this that can get ugly, and I really mean ugly.&lt;br /&gt; &lt;br /&gt; I have been on both sides of these issues, meaning that I have spent a lot of time being evaluated and also evaluating for about 14 years now, and can say that I have seen some of the worst and best of what can arise from this. Everything is all fine and nice when everyone agrees, but there not infrequently arises a situation in which one or both people think that the other has misdiagnosed themselves, usually thinking that the other hasn&amp;rsquo;t yet attained to what they claim to have, and then the compassionate battle begins, either subtly or overtly, to convince the poor misguided delusional sap that they are not at the level they think they are and they should acknowledge the superiority of the loving attacker and get their practice back on track. &lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;div&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;&lt;br /&gt; While those are not particularly nice terms to use, in reality that is often how it is, even if everyone is pretending otherwise and putting on their nicest and most whitewashed mask of gentle condescension. I am not saying there isn&amp;rsquo;t sometimes some profound and real compassion behind these situations, but the difficulties are legion in the slippery world of evaluating something that is sometimes difficult to measure and regarding a topic that is so close to peoples&amp;rsquo; hearts and identities in the ultimate and relative senses and on both sides of the conflict. &lt;/span&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;&lt;br /&gt; Once a view is locked in that someone is not at the level they think they are, it is very easy to take issue with every term and concept that they use and perceive them through that filter, such that no wisdom coming from their keyboard or mouths appears to be anything other than their rationalizing of their own ignorance with misapplied theory and lingo. Paradoxically, there can arise a situation in which the person being judged has risen far enough above the level of understanding of the person judging them that the judger can no longer fully understand anything the person who is being judged is saying, resulting in even worse miscommunication, as to the judger it looks like even more delusional grandiosity on the part of the judged. &lt;/span&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;&lt;br /&gt; On the other hand, sometimes one is exactly correct in believing that the delusional intellectual is in fact just that: someone who has managed to rationalize themselves into the golden cage of a theoretician who has come to falsely believe they are an advanced practitioner. Who would be so callous and aloof as to not reach out to them with all the tools at one&amp;rsquo;s disposal to help them realize their slippery plight when clearly their stated aim is some higher level of understanding? &lt;/span&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;&lt;br /&gt; These things can get even worse when there are roll reversals, meaning that students outpace their teachers or friends outpace friends. Precocious practitioners tend to ruffle the feathers of the old guard. Related to this is the situation when both parties do have some wisdom and attainments but both begin to believe the other is actually deluded or not at a level that is as high as they are, as can happen particularly in the middle paths. Further complicating this is the fact that the maps are just that: broad strokes, crude reductionistic sketches of a very complex process, and while there are some good sign-posts along the way, a lot of the middle territory is pretty grey. Worse, not everyone has come up in the dharma with the same sets of criteria for various levels or even agrees what those levels are, and standards vary tremendously. Final and firm decisions are often hard to arrive at, even when we judge our own practice, and this is worth remembering. I personally have been wrong about various aspects of my own practice more times than I could possibly count. &lt;/span&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;&lt;br /&gt; Things often are not so black and white as everyone involved would make them out to be, situations in which two people may have good wisdom, just not necessarily quite as much as they think they do. It is these sorts of situations that really lead to some of the ugliest pissing matches, test even the strongest friendships, and strain communities. When titans clash, the shock waves can ripple out far and wide. &lt;/span&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;&lt;br /&gt; I know of a few of these situations going on now, some overtly, some behind the scenes, and some skittering between strained but respectful thread exchanges and really blatant, &amp;ldquo;You have no idea what you are talking about&amp;rdquo;-style posts. &lt;br /&gt; In the spirit of the Dharma Overground, I thought it would be worth having a place where people could just go ahead and fight it out so as to get it done and over with when possible, though I realize from my own experience that these things can go on for years without easy or comfortable resolution. &lt;/span&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;&lt;br /&gt; It is also possible that everyone will suddenly become polite or go undercover when these things are made so overt as I have done here, and thus they will step away from the ring for some period of time or go on being somewhat subtle about things. &lt;br /&gt; Specifically, there is the Curious Case of Trent (Yabaxoule), a young IT professional who in less than a year and without retreats claims to be at least a anagami if not an arahat, which has caused what seems to be reasonable concern from a substantial group of seasoned practitioners here, as is only natural. If he has deluded himself, then it makes sense to try to help him figure out how he has gone wrong. If he has actually done anything like what he claims, then it makes sense to try to figure out how he did it so that others can also, as that rapidity of progress would be quite remarkable on retreat, much less in daily life with a job and relationship. Both are worthy goals. He has given me permission to use his name and case here, which is kind and brave. &lt;/span&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;&lt;br /&gt; I thought it would be worth exploring this curious case head-on, and perhaps that will help bring out in the open the dark but inevitable side of map-based and goal-oriented practice among serious practitioners, and perhaps some of the other more subtle battles will come more out in the open as a result. &lt;/span&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;&lt;br /&gt; While taking these issues head on is a very risky thing to do, I think that keeping them more covert is worse. True, watching these battles can cause a lack of faith on the part of those who are not as advanced, as they watch theoretically advanced practitioners seem to behave like bickering children at worse and often seem like patronizing and arrogant schoolmarms at best, but such is the nature of the beast, and those who aren&amp;rsquo;t willing to face the fact that this is how things sometimes go should stay out the kitchen. &lt;br /&gt; While I have painted these debates in pretty scathing terms, as they often end up that way, I believe that there ways that this can happen that are respectful, skillful, open-minded, helpful and practical, and I call on those here to do their best to dive into the dark waters of comparison and judgement with all the bravery and talent that got them where they are today and come up with something better than what typically happens in the rest of the world when these issues arise. As this is the Dharma Overground, and The Dharma Overground so far shines like the Sun most of the time, I believe my vision of how good things can be is not only possible but probable.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Let the games begin!&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</summary> <dc:creator>Daniel M. Ingram</dc:creator> <dc:date>2009-03-26T12:50:00Z</dc:date> </entry> <entry> <title>Jewish Mysticism and the DhO</title> <link rel="alternate" href="http://www.dharmaoverground.org/web/guest/testblog/-/blogs/jewish-mysticism-and-the-dho" /> <author> <name>Kenneth Folk</name> </author> <id>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/web/guest/testblog/-/blogs/jewish-mysticism-and-the-dho</id> <updated>2009-05-18T00:20:50Z</updated> <published>2009-03-22T12:49:00Z</published> <summary type="html">&lt;p&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;I've been thinking about the future of the Dharma Overground. With the new website in the offing, there is a real possibility that the community will change, a prospect both exciting and frightening. As a student of perspectives, I've been fascinated lately by the concepts of &lt;i&gt;chesed&lt;/i&gt;, &lt;i&gt;gevorah&lt;/i&gt;, and &lt;i&gt;tiferet&lt;/i&gt;, as taught in the Kabbalistic Tree of Life.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Here is an excerpt from Rabbi David Cooper&amp;rsquo;s book &lt;i&gt;God is a Verb:&lt;/i&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;i&gt; &lt;/i&gt;&lt;i&gt;The Tree of Life is modeled in triads; two aspects work in opposition to each other, with a third on a moving equilibrium point between the two. Here&amp;rsquo;s how it works.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt; &lt;/i&gt;Chesed &lt;i&gt;is the quality of expansiveness and generosity, the part of us that yields even though another part says no. It operates best when there is no self-consciousness holding it back. The tendency of &lt;/i&gt;chesed &lt;i&gt;is to be extremely liberal, willing to try anything. Uncontrolled, however, it has the tendency to smother the recipient. It has no self-limitation; it knows only how to bestow things. Pure generosity will keep piling the food high on the plate; it will spin cotton candy until it fills the circus tent; it will give away the family jewels.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt; &lt;/i&gt;Gevorah &lt;i&gt;is the quality of contraction and restraint. It stands in opposition to generosity. Restraint is the ability to say no even when social pressure is brought to bear. &lt;/i&gt;Gevorah &lt;i&gt;represents universal justice as well; it understands that everything impacts and has repercussions. The tendency of gevorah is to be excessively conservative, preferring things just as they are. Uncontrolled, &lt;/i&gt;gevorah &lt;i&gt;is stifling. It does not allow for any movement. It is strictly conformist, unspontaneous, rigid, and hypercritical.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt; These two poles interact and work with each other. At times, we are drawn more by our generous spirit; other times we withdraw. The system is dynamic and continuously fluid. We all have tendencies to lean one way or the other. Yet we are under the influence of many variables. Thus, nobody is ever 100-percent predictable.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt; Because the poles of generosity and restraint constantly tug or push against each other, a pendulum, or balance point (&lt;/i&gt;tiferet&lt;i&gt;), is needed to mediate between the two. &lt;/i&gt;Tiferet &lt;i&gt;represents compassion and beauty. In many ways it is the middle path, neither too self-indulgent nor too self-restrictive. It is important to note that &lt;/i&gt;tiferet &lt;i&gt;has its own impact on the triad; it is not merely the consequence of two opposing forces. It brings to bear a third component, which is drawn from the trunk of the tree itself; reflection to generosity, and consideration to restraint. Thus, one can see that the entire triad is dynamic and mobile.&lt;/i&gt; (David Cooper, &lt;i&gt;God Is a Verb&lt;/i&gt;, pp. 89,90)&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I wonder what &lt;i&gt;Chesed&lt;/i&gt;, &lt;i&gt;Gevorah&lt;/i&gt;, and &lt;i&gt;Tiferet &lt;/i&gt;would say about the future of the Dharma Overground. It might go something like this:&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;i&gt;Chesed&lt;/i&gt;: We need to expand. Let&amp;rsquo;s be more inclusive. The potential for straight talk on dharma is &lt;i&gt;enormous&lt;/i&gt;. Who wouldn&amp;rsquo;t want to be a part of this if we could just find a way to make it more appealing? We could have different sections, one for each tradition. And we need to reach out to women. Right now, DhO is a men&amp;rsquo;s club. Worse, it&amp;rsquo;s a white, geeky men&amp;rsquo;s club. The few women who have bothered to join rarely post. We are obviously doing something that is alienating to women. And where&amp;rsquo;s the ethnic and cultural diversity? How many Blacks do we have? How many Latinos? How many indigenous tribespeople? I could go on and on. (Golly, I hope I didn&amp;rsquo;t leave anybody out, I would just die if I offended anyone.) We have a few Asians and Europeans, and that&amp;rsquo;s a good start, but we should really do more outreach to let everyone know they are welcome here. Remember, anything that isn&amp;rsquo;t given away will eventually be lost.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;i&gt;Gevorah&lt;/i&gt;: Whoa, slow down there, Cheesy. DhO is fine just the way it is. We can&amp;rsquo;t be all things to all people. We&amp;rsquo;re lucky to have any community at all. There&amp;rsquo;s never been anything like DhO before. If we try to get cute, we&amp;rsquo;re just going to mess it up. Look, I care about diversity, too. But how many times have we seen something good go to the dogs while trying to expand? Why isn&amp;rsquo;t anyone ever satisfied with a good thing? I can see it now; we&amp;rsquo;re going to water down our message in some misguided effort to reach the whole world. That&amp;rsquo;s the very definition of &amp;ldquo;idiot compassion.&amp;rdquo; Let&amp;rsquo;s keep DhO small. In fact, let&amp;rsquo;s make it even more exclusive. It&amp;rsquo;s a niche site that has a very specific mission--to provide support for those few, rare, precious individuals who actually want to practice instead of just talk about it. It makes me sick to think that we are going to throw away what we have in an effort to get something better. Remember, a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;i&gt;Tiferet&lt;/i&gt;: All right you two, let&amp;rsquo;s see if we can find some common ground. Maybe we can meet everybody&amp;rsquo;s needs. &lt;i&gt;Chesed&lt;/i&gt;, you want to share your good fortune with others. &lt;i&gt;Gevorah&lt;/i&gt;, you are worried that in a poorly conceived effort to grow for the sake of growth, even those who are being served now will end up with nothing. Is there some middle way between unbridled growth and rigid conservatism? It wouldn&amp;rsquo;t hurt us to be a little more inclusive. We don&amp;rsquo;t have to become the WalMart of enlightenment. Let&amp;rsquo;s take it point by point: in the first place, why do we use so much Theravada Buddhist language? Is it really the best language to use? We could discuss this as a community. Maybe we&amp;rsquo;ll decide that it &lt;i&gt;is &lt;/i&gt;the best language to use, or at least as good as any. If so, let&amp;rsquo;s provide a section on basic Pali word definitions so that newcomers can get up to speed on the vocabulary. We could hyperlink all the Pali words to their definitions. It wouldn&amp;rsquo;t be that hard. And let&amp;rsquo;s acknowledge up front that many people have legitimate enlightenments that are not consistent with Theravada maps. Number two: surely we could all benefit from a better gender balance. Even the diehard geeky white men who post here regularly are going to like having women around. Let&amp;rsquo;s directly ask our female members what they would like to see and listen carefully to their answers. And number three, the fact that we don&amp;rsquo;t have much ethnic diversity is a little weird. We could at least ask the question: is there something off-putting about the way we are going about this? We don&amp;rsquo;t know the answer yet, but it wouldn&amp;rsquo;t hurt us to take an honest look at ourselves. Bottom line, let&amp;rsquo;s take care of ourselves while at the same time taking care of others.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;</summary> <dc:creator>Kenneth Folk</dc:creator> <dc:date>2009-03-22T12:49:00Z</dc:date> </entry> <entry> <title>Bipolar Disorder and Insight</title> <link rel="alternate" href="http://www.dharmaoverground.org/web/guest/testblog/-/blogs/bipolar-disorder-and-insight" /> <author> <name>Daniel M. Ingram</name> </author> <id>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/web/guest/testblog/-/blogs/bipolar-disorder-and-insight</id> <updated>2009-05-01T13:28:46Z</updated> <published>2009-03-20T13:27:00Z</published> <summary type="html">&lt;div id="WPC-areaContainer?cellId=Bipolar+Disorder+and+Insight"&gt;&lt;div class="WPC-editableContent" id="WPC-area?cellId=Bipolar+Disorder+and+Insight&amp;amp;version=7&amp;amp;savePath=%2Fpage%2FBipolar%2BDisorder%2Band%2BInsight&amp;amp;saveType=page"&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;I got an email asking about Bipolar Disorder (AKA Manic-Depressive Disorder) and how it related to the traditional maps of the Progress of Insight. As one who advocates for truth in advertising and frank disclosure of what can happen when people get into insight practice, both good and bad, here is my response in slightly edited form. I hope that it provokes some thoughtful discussion of this complex topic.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;***************&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;You are obviously not the first to notice the similarity between A&amp;amp;P events and Manic Episodes and The Dark Night (Dukkha Ñanas, Insight stages 5-10) and Depressive Episodes. The parallels are many and striking.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Here's a short list:&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Age of Onset: most people who cross the A&amp;amp;P spontaneously do so in their teenage years to 20's. Most people who are Bipolar will have their first Manic Episode then as well.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;div&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;div&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;Sequence: The Dark Night follows the A&amp;amp;P like thunder follows lightening. Same for Depression following Manic Episodes.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Timing: The A&amp;amp;P tends to last some number of days to maybe a week or two tops: so do manic episodes. The Dark Nights that follows A&amp;amp;P Events tend to last for months: so do the depressive episodes that follow manic episodes.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Sleep: People tend to sleep very little during the A&amp;amp;P and be more tired during the Dark Night. Same for the corresponding bipolar states.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Energy: People tend to have all kinds of energy to put into grand projects, schemes, relationships, sex and the like during the A&amp;amp;P and have much less for those same things, including work, school and relationships during the Dark Night. Same goes for their bipolar equivalents.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Mood: People tend to be high as kites during the A&amp;amp;P and dark and depressed during the Dark Night. Same applies to bipolar states.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Powers: People in the A&amp;amp;P may feel they have special powers, common ones being things like seeing through their eye lids, seeing bright lights, reading other people's minds, traveling out of body, seeing past lives, hearing and seeing entities, and many others. Ditto for Manic Episodes.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Here are the differences:&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;People in the A&amp;amp;P tend to generally function well, where as people with Manic Episodes, as classically defined, tend to need to be institutionalized or medicated to avoid really destroying their lives, spending all their money, ruining their relationships, getting into fights, being arrested, gambling away all their money, having sex with lots of people, thinking they are the King/Queen of the Universe, etc. In short, this is a difference between functional hypomania and true psychotic mania.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;People in the Dark Night tend to be somewhat less functional in terms of relationships and the like. In contrast, people with classic Depressive swings tend to be much more dysfunctional, suicidal, and may have psychotic features, like voices telling them to kill themselves, or delusions that they are very sick and will die soon, or everyone is out to get them, etc.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;However, while I make the line clear cut by way of rhetoric, in truth it is not so straightforward. Case in point: I remember getting a call some time ago from someone who may actually be somewhere in the middle paths. They were suicidal at the time and quite afraid. A few days later they left Re-Observation and got in Equanimity and suddenly were fine, but it just goes to show that it is not always easy straightening this out, mapping it in real-time, or compensating even when you know the maps very well and are a skilled insight practitioner.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Another friend was in the middle paths and was formally diagnosed (rightly or wrongly) as having Bipolar II Rapid Cycling and put on meds for it, which helped somewhat. When they attained to a higher path they were suddenly alright and didn't needs meds at all. Was their diagnosis simply the struggling of a Western therapist to put the cycles of insight into their only related box, or was this actually a correct diagnosis that was in fact cured by more insight? These terminological questions are not just semantics and have real implications for mental health and insight practice and handling both skillfully. I wish I had firm answers to them, but I don't.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Regarding your question on whether or not the traditional sources help: I know of no Buddhist writings that address this. Nowhere have I found anything that describes these things in a way that fits with a Western psychological perspective. The traditional maps were written for monks, who in theory were pretty high functioning people, in a culture that had nothing like our current concepts of mental illness.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;More interesting parallels: those who keep crossing the A&amp;amp;P and getting into Dark Night territory and then fall back due to not getting stream entry and then crossing the A&amp;amp;P again and getting into the Dark Night, etc., tend to get more reactive with each pass, just as people with Bipolar do: as they get older and have more manic episodes, they get worse.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;If you are only having these experiences on retreat, they are probably related to the cycles of insight. Good practice and clear investigation with awareness of the maps and a willingness to compensate and keep your mouth shut except when around people who can help you navigate the territory is generally recommended. On the other hand, those who have these things in daily life with the features that seem more ominous of more classic Bipolar disorder should seek help quickly, as Bipolar disorder can really screw up your life. I have had a few close friends over the years who were Bipolar and I have seen what happens when it is not managed well and it is not pretty.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;Where one might be tempted to argue that people with Bipolar Disorder are merely the far extreme of what can happen in the cycles of insight, I don't have sufficient evidence to support that and would need further confirmation, such as sufficient numbers of clearly Bipolar people gaining sufficient paths and suddenly being cured to make definitive conclusions. At this time, so far as I know, there is simply not enough data. However, as you point out, there certainly are so many parallels that it is hard to simply write them off as being unrelated phenomena.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;It is not accidental that I sometimes refer to those who have crossed the A&amp;amp;P at least once as having &amp;quot;Insight Disease&amp;quot;.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;p&gt;&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;</summary> <dc:creator>Daniel M. Ingram</dc:creator> <dc:date>2009-03-20T13:27:00Z</dc:date> </entry> <entry> <title>A Realtime Chronicle of 2nd Path?</title> <link rel="alternate" href="http://www.dharmaoverground.org/web/guest/testblog/-/blogs/a-realtime-chronicle-of-2nd-path" /> <author> <name>Kenneth Folk</name> </author> <id>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/web/guest/testblog/-/blogs/a-realtime-chronicle-of-2nd-path</id> <updated>2009-05-01T17:14:38Z</updated> <published>2009-03-19T17:13:00Z</published> <summary type="html">&lt;p&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;&lt;font face="Arial"&gt;The following is a rapid-fire email exchange between Tarin (theprisonergreco) and Kenneth, in March of 2009. Tarin's communications are in italics, Kenneth's are in standard type.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/font&gt; &lt;font face="Arial"&gt;&lt;i&gt;1) From Tarin:&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/i&gt;&lt;/font&gt; &lt;font face="Arial"&gt;&lt;i&gt;@Kenneth: &amp;quot;I began reporting to U Kundala that I was experiencing hundreds of little flashes of cessation each day, like the winking out of consciousness for a moment. They came singly or in waves, and I could induce them at will.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt; let's chat about this a bit? are you talking about something different than just inclining the mind toward the end of phenomena? or are you talking about noticing how everything ends in a total way, like how when you notice that attention/the mind is totally discontinuous, cessation becomes obvious. because if so, that's what im finding i'm noticing more nowadays. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt; after dark nighting pretty hard earlier this week, i just had a big fruition today that stopped me in my tracks, and from the after-effects, which are still continuing to unfold slowly, i think i may have finished a path. not that it really changes anything. in your experience, what was the difference between 1st path and 2nd path fruitions when you reviewed them? (as referenced in the story with u kundala). it's a bit early for me to say - if its that time at all - but i intuit that a 2nd path fruition would afterwards just seem to have been more relevant somehow. other than that, i notice no difference.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt; tarin&lt;/i&gt;&lt;/font&gt;&lt;font face="Arial"&gt;&lt;i&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/i&gt;&lt;/font&gt; &lt;font face="Arial"&gt;&lt;i&gt;2) From Tarin:&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/i&gt;&lt;/font&gt; &lt;font face="Arial"&gt;&lt;i&gt;as things continue to unfold this is clear than before: the mind blinks in and out of something that is fundamentally no different from the mind&lt;/i&gt;&lt;/font&gt;&lt;font face="Arial"&gt;&lt;i&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/i&gt;&lt;/font&gt; &lt;font face="Arial"&gt;3) From Kenneth:&lt;br /&gt; Very nice, Tarin.&lt;br /&gt; Primordial awareness underlies it all. The manifest universe arises from and is not separate from primordial awareness. Even cessation is known.&lt;/font&gt;&lt;font face="Arial"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/font&gt; &lt;font face="Arial"&gt;&lt;i&gt;4)&lt;br /&gt; so is there a cessation-beyond-cessation?&lt;br /&gt; can primordial awareness as you call it be known?&lt;/i&gt;&lt;/font&gt;&lt;font face="Arial"&gt;&lt;i&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/i&gt;&lt;/font&gt; &lt;font face="Arial"&gt;5)&lt;br /&gt; Primordial awareness is always known. It's just obscured by other stuff. If you follow your mind all the way upstream, you leave your identity behind and primordial awareness knows itself. This is thogal (spontaneous arising), the highest dzogchen teaching. I call it the simplest thing. I think it was Jed McKenna who said &amp;quot;that which cannot be further reduced.&amp;quot; When the simplest thing knows itself, emptiness and form are integrated. It isn't possible to see primordial awareness without also seeing the universe arising from and passing away into it, leaving not a trace. It's quite remarkable, really. Primordial awareness is unstained although it is inseparable from the world.&lt;/font&gt;&lt;font face="Arial"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/font&gt; &lt;font face="Arial"&gt;&lt;i&gt;6)&lt;br /&gt; how is this different from what is seen when awareness is reflected on? where's the so-called stick stirring in the fire?&lt;/i&gt;&lt;/font&gt;&lt;font face="Arial"&gt;&lt;i&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/i&gt;&lt;/font&gt; &lt;font face="Arial"&gt;7)&lt;br /&gt; The stick that stirs the fire is the no-dog. It's not the simplest thing. It's the second to simplest thing. When even the &amp;quot;I am&amp;quot; goes away, there is still knowing, but without the sense of a knower.&lt;/font&gt;&lt;font face="Arial"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/font&gt; &lt;font face="Arial"&gt;&lt;i&gt;8)&lt;br /&gt; ah ok! so the 'i am' really does go away, eh? for how long at a stretch have you been able to get that to stick? (or no stick, haha)&lt;/i&gt;&lt;/font&gt;&lt;font face="Arial"&gt;&lt;i&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/i&gt;&lt;/font&gt; &lt;font face="Arial"&gt;9)&lt;br /&gt; Smoothly in and out of no-stick for hours at a time. Flowing between no-dog, no-stick, dharma reflection, absorption, the occasional practical thought, back to no-dog, back to no-stick.&lt;/font&gt;&lt;font face="Arial"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/font&gt; &lt;font face="Arial"&gt;&lt;i&gt;10)&lt;br /&gt; man, that is some accomplishment. can you get no-stick to go through the reflections and practical thoughts too sometimes?&lt;/i&gt;&lt;/font&gt;&lt;font face="Arial"&gt;&lt;i&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/i&gt;&lt;/font&gt; &lt;font face="Arial"&gt;11)&lt;br /&gt; Hmmm, I'd say it's more like a smooth flow in and out. Even though the no-stick is always there, it's so subtle that it is easily obscured.&lt;br /&gt; Another way of saying it would be that it's like the sky. If you're looking at something else, you're not looking at the sky; but the sky is always right there where you left it, should you happen to remember to look up.&lt;/font&gt;&lt;font face="Arial"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/font&gt; &lt;font face="Arial"&gt;&lt;i&gt;12)&lt;/i&gt;&lt;/font&gt; &lt;font face="Arial"&gt;&lt;i&gt;&lt;br /&gt;hmm.. so by no-dogging enough, no-stick will start showing up, smoothly in and out? no arahat path required?&lt;/i&gt;&lt;/font&gt;&lt;font face="Arial"&gt;&lt;i&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/i&gt;&lt;/font&gt; &lt;font face="Arial"&gt;13)&lt;/font&gt; &lt;font face="Arial"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;This is my belief. Perhaps you can help me prove it. I wasn't able to do it until after arahatship, but I don't take that to be conclusive evidence that it can't be done. I was laboring under the limitations of my belief system. I frankly don't know the answer. I have a friend who is not an arahat, but who seems to describe the no-stick very clearly.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt; I'm convinced, however, that the no-dog is accessible before Fourth Path: this is the whole point of advaita. They teach you to dwell in the no-dog until the no-stick arises. Although communication is by nature imperfect, it seems clear to me that my wife is able to dwell in the no-dog, pre-2nd Path. And I get the impression from you that you are able to dwell in the no-dog. And although I never learned to dwell in it much pre-arahat, I had many brief experiences of the no-dog all along the way, beginning with my very first opening.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt; It may be that no-stick is synonymous with arahatship, so I'll be very interested to hear about your experiences with this. As always, the problem with drawing firm conclusions about what is possible is that we have such a limited sample size.&lt;/font&gt; &lt;font face="Arial"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/font&gt; &lt;font face="Arial"&gt;&lt;i&gt;14)&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/i&gt;&lt;/font&gt; &lt;font face="Arial"&gt;&lt;i&gt;not just no-dog, but also no-stick, has shown up for both me and two of my dharma friends, and none of us are arahants. in fact, as far as we know, neither of them has gotten any path either, but both of them have a deep and integrated understanding of emptiness that has strongly influenced me over the almost 10 years that i've known both of them as practitioners. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt; if i'm understanding your terms correctly, my friends and I used to discuss no-dog and no-stick all the time, but we called it 'witnessing as consciousness' and 'witnessing without a witnesser'. both of us have had limited experiences of the latter. i certainly know what the no-this-side-that-side is like, though i cant just induce it at will (no-dog is the closest i know how to.. and no-dog keeps deepening).&lt;br /&gt; my take is that no-stick is hinted at from time to time when anyone dwells in no-dog clearly and with good concentration. arahantship probably just makes no-dog deeper and 'more complete', and as a result, no-stick much more accessible.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;/font&gt;&lt;font face="Arial"&gt;&lt;i&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/i&gt;&lt;/font&gt; &lt;font face="Arial"&gt;&lt;i&gt;15)&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/i&gt;&lt;/font&gt; &lt;font face="Arial"&gt;&lt;i&gt;i just got back from taking a walk. i definitely got a new path - sure of it now.&lt;br /&gt; the in-my-face quality of cessation is pretty clear. i can 'call them up' now in a way i couldnt just a few hours ago. i feel light and happy like after i just got first path.. it could be that im just sleep deprived too. my mind is so awake.&lt;br /&gt; you know what im noticing more than before? how 'out-of-control' my experience is, and in a good way. in a way that seems to almost suggest acausality or even reverse causality. like this thing is just going to do what its going to do anyway.. including predict (think) totally contradictory things!&lt;br /&gt; so is this thing conditioned or unconditioned? man.. that seems to be the question now.&lt;br /&gt; ps- i really cant tell now if fruitions even exist as separate from the world of things or not. like even a non-event must be an event. was i deluded somehow in thinking that there was a difference? that there was a difference not just between the sensations that imply form and the sensations that imply emptiness, but even between that and what i thought was emptiness itself? that reminds me of this old non-dualistic greek philosopher, parmenides, who emphasised that nothing doesnt exist. what do you think?&lt;/i&gt;&lt;/font&gt;&lt;font face="Arial"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt; 16)&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/font&gt; &lt;font face="Arial"&gt;Philosophical claptrap. :-)&lt;br /&gt; Just dwell in the no-dog and be happy. You've got a lot of work to do fleshing out the stinky phase before you can fall from grace and be a chump like the rest of us. Enjoy it while you can.&lt;/font&gt;&lt;font face="Arial"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/font&gt; &lt;font face="Arial"&gt;&lt;i&gt;17)&lt;/i&gt;&lt;/font&gt; &lt;font face="Arial"&gt;&lt;i&gt;&lt;br /&gt;hah, screw you guys im not gonna fall from grace like the rest of you chumps, my grace is more humble than yours&lt;/i&gt;&lt;/font&gt;&lt;font face="Arial"&gt;&lt;i&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/i&gt;&lt;/font&gt; &lt;font face="Arial"&gt;18)&lt;/font&gt; &lt;br /&gt; &lt;font face="Arial"&gt;LOL. Nice one, Stinky. :-)&lt;/font&gt; &lt;font face="Arial"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;[Kenneth is referring to the &amp;quot;stink of enlightenment.&amp;rdquo;]&lt;/font&gt;&lt;font face="Arial"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/font&gt; &lt;font face="Arial"&gt;&lt;i&gt;19)&lt;/i&gt;&lt;/font&gt; &lt;font face="Arial"&gt;&lt;i&gt;&lt;br /&gt;i totally resonate with your descriptions of the 3 types of cessation by the way. except maybe the dukkha ones, those descriptions arent as clear ot me. go into more detail if you can? once again, like with first path, this path fruition was through anatta door - really catches you off-guard, dont it&lt;/i&gt;&lt;/font&gt;&lt;font face="Arial"&gt;&lt;i&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/i&gt;&lt;/font&gt; &lt;font face="Arial"&gt;20)&lt;/font&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;font face="Arial"&gt;Roll your eyes up into your head and let them flicker. Is the flickering continuous, or does it come in pulsing waves? Watch for the end of a cycle of flickers. There's just a tiny bit of tension as you focus on the end of the wave. Ftrrrp, ftrrrrp, ftrrrp. The hard stop is a dukkha cessation. The smoother, slippery ones are anatta.&lt;/font&gt;&lt;font face="Arial"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/font&gt; &lt;font face="Arial"&gt;&lt;i&gt;21)&lt;/i&gt;&lt;/font&gt; &lt;br /&gt; &lt;font face="Arial"&gt;&lt;i&gt;oh shit. i get it. im much more inclined to notice anatta door but if i keep looking ill notice the dukkha ones too. 'hard stop' indeed. can do this with any other sensation/vibration too&lt;/i&gt;.&lt;/font&gt;&lt;font face="Arial"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/font&gt; &lt;font face="Arial"&gt;&lt;i&gt;22)&lt;/i&gt;&lt;/font&gt;&lt;font face="Arial"&gt;&lt;i&gt;&lt;br /&gt;cessation seems to happen wherever/whenever i look for it. do you think this could be true for anyone if only they just knew that? that it's possible that all anyone has to do to find a cessation is to look for it?&lt;/i&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;23)&lt;br /&gt; Wouldn't it be pretty to think so. But I suspect that is not the case. The Paths are somehow physiological. I don't think the circuitry is in place to experience First Path...until it is...and that is, by definition, First Path. Same with 2nd, 3rd, and 4th Path. There seems to be some re-wiring of the energy flow within the body/mind.&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;font size="3" face="Arial"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;</summary> <dc:creator>Kenneth Folk</dc:creator> <dc:date>2009-03-19T17:13:00Z</dc:date> </entry> <entry> <title>Conversations with an Advanced Yogi</title> <link rel="alternate" href="http://www.dharmaoverground.org/web/guest/testblog/-/blogs/conversations-with-an-advanced-yogi" /> <author> <name>Kenneth Folk</name> </author> <id>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/web/guest/testblog/-/blogs/conversations-with-an-advanced-yogi</id> <updated>2009-05-01T17:13:11Z</updated> <published>2009-03-17T17:08:00Z</published> <summary type="html">&lt;p&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;Hi Charles,&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt; This report is exactly the sort of thing I was hoping for with regard to the development practice. With this kind of clear description of your experience we can refine the language and the techniques. It also provides a platform for making a clear distinction between the instructions for development and the instructions for non-dual practice.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt; Please scroll down to see where I have responded to your experiences and impressions. Your comments are in italics, mine are in standard type.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt; Mudita,&lt;br /&gt; Kenneth&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;table cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" class="MsoNormalTable"&gt; &lt;tbody&gt;&lt;tr&gt; &lt;td&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt; &lt;i&gt;Dear Kenneth:&lt;/i&gt; &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;i&gt; First, I would like to report how my morning meditations have been influenced by this ongoing conversation. For a long time now, I have been mixing myself a bowl of Japanese green tea and then happily sitting for anywhere between 45 and 90 minutes doing my regular practice. What is that? Just sitting in naked awareness. Often the mind wanders and I simply notice. Happy sitting.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;i&gt; Tsoknyi's perspective is, when sitting &amp;quot;anything goes.&amp;quot; No problems. And his initial instruction on my very first retreat with him was: &amp;quot;Be Happy!&amp;quot; He added, &amp;quot;not hippy happy,&amp;quot; which I interpreted as, &amp;quot;Relax!&amp;quot;&lt;/i&gt; &lt;br /&gt;&lt;i&gt; This was a revelation for me. Teachers up to then always had some instruction: &amp;quot;Watch your breath,&amp;quot; &amp;quot;Sit up straight,&amp;quot; &amp;quot;Observe your mind,&amp;quot; and so forth. Here was somebody who gave permission to be easy with one's self when meditating, and moreover, whatever happens doesn't matter! It's all grist for the mill of primordial awareness.&lt;/i&gt; &lt;/span&gt;&lt;/td&gt; &lt;/tr&gt; &lt;/tbody&gt;&lt;/table&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt; &lt;br /&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;These paragraphs bring into focus the fact that development practices and non-dual practices are not at all the same. It is tempting for vipassana students to imagine that dzogchen is some subset of vipassana, e.g. Mindfulness of Mind, one of the Four Foundations of Mindfulness. It is not. Non-dual practice, by whatever name, is completely outside of that&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt; &lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;table cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" class="MsoNormalTable"&gt; &lt;tbody&gt;&lt;tr&gt; &lt;td&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt; &lt;i&gt; At that first retreat with Tsoknyi, there were many Vipassana practitioners, and I imagined hearing a great sigh of relief when he offered his initial teaching. I certainly had it in my own mind. Relax, Be Happy.&lt;/i&gt; &lt;br /&gt;&lt;i&gt; It was a curious retreat because in the Tibetan modality there is a great deal of teaching and a great deal of whispering when we were on breaks. Also, breaks did not include an walking practice. This was really foreign for me as I was accustomed to fairly strict rules regarding any contact between yogis: auditory, visual or touch. Everybody on this retreat seemed to be just messing around. Still, lo and behold, at the end of this first retreat, I felt very much as I did at the end of the many strict programs of Vipassana in the previous years. Yet, here in this relaxed atmosphere, something had happened.&lt;/i&gt; &lt;/span&gt;&lt;/td&gt; &lt;/tr&gt; &lt;/tbody&gt;&lt;/table&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt; &lt;br /&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;Yes. If the object of awareness is the contents of the mind,as in vipassana or samatha (jhana) practice those contents must by carefully nurtured, even controlled. Hence, &amp;quot;no looky, no touchy, no talky.&amp;quot; If, on the other hand, that which we are interested in is outside of the small mind, the contents of the mind are not relevant.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt; &lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;table cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" class="MsoNormalTable"&gt; &lt;tbody&gt;&lt;tr&gt; &lt;td&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt; &lt;i&gt; I was amazed. I had been conditioned to believe that one had to struggle, to work hard, obey the rules, use a great deal of effort, hold on tight. That was what a retreat was supposed to look like. And the payoff was great on those retreats; altered mind states and very high feelings. So I assumed that the hard work was a necessary ingredient for the results at the end.&lt;/i&gt; &lt;/span&gt;&lt;/td&gt; &lt;/tr&gt; &lt;/tbody&gt;&lt;/table&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;table cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" class="MsoNormalTable"&gt; &lt;tbody&gt;&lt;tr&gt; &lt;td&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt; &lt;i&gt; But what if one could discover a transforming modality of practice that was actually relaxed, not so quiet, not such a struggle? This was a completely new understanding. Tsoknyi calls this (non) practice: &amp;quot;non distracted, non meditation.&amp;quot;&lt;/i&gt; &lt;br /&gt;&lt;i&gt; There is nothing to do, no point of focus, and yet the key idea of &amp;quot;non distracted&amp;quot; suggests that in fact one is &amp;quot;not doing,&amp;quot; which is the flip side&amp;mdash;and in many ways the same as&amp;mdash;doing! Not doing what? Not being distracted, that is, not falling into the trap of the grasping mind. Simply allowing whatever arises without pulling, pushing or altering in any way. This, I believe, is one of the great attractions to the non-practice of Realization.&lt;/i&gt; &lt;br /&gt;&lt;i&gt; And it works!&lt;/i&gt; &lt;/span&gt;&lt;/td&gt; &lt;/tr&gt; &lt;/tbody&gt;&lt;/table&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt; &lt;br /&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;It works. As you say, the idea of &amp;quot;non distracted&amp;quot; is key. The mind has to be at rest, together in one place, for realization to happen. If one is frantically chasing chickens, one forgets to look up at the clear blue sky. In just that one aspect, non-dual practice is like the vipassana or jhana practices.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;But in its essence, non-dual awareness could be said to be the opposite of development practice. As always, we must be careful with language. Development practices like vipassana and samatha (pure concentration leading to jhana) urge the yogi to &amp;quot;look inward.&amp;quot; From the perspective of non-dual practice, however, all such practices are actually looking&lt;/span&gt; &lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;&lt;i&gt;outward&lt;/i&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;. If, as in the case of vipassana, one is carefully observing &amp;quot;the changing phenomena of mind and body,&amp;quot; one is still looking&lt;/span&gt; &lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;&lt;i&gt;away &lt;/i&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;from the most fundamental aspect of experience, i.e. the&lt;/span&gt; &lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;&lt;i&gt;knowing &lt;/i&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;of said experience. It is that very&lt;/span&gt; &lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;&lt;i&gt;knowing &lt;/i&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;that is the object of awareness in non-dual practice. (And already the language has broken down, as knowing is simultaneously the subject and object of non-dual practice.) Development practices are the opposite of non-dual practice because the former focus on the contents of the mind, while the latter focuses on the mind itself.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;During a retreat I attended in 2005, the teacher read from one of the &amp;quot;forbidden texts&amp;quot; of Tibetan dzogchen. One phrase that particularly struck me was &amp;quot;turn the light around.&amp;quot; When the ubiquitous &amp;quot;knowing&amp;quot; turns around to take itself as object,&lt;/span&gt; &lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;&lt;i&gt;only then&lt;/i&gt;&lt;/span&gt; &lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;can it be said that the yogi is looking inward. Non-dual practice is a completely different kettle of fish from development practice. And when the light is turned around, subject and object are seen to be one. &amp;quot;It knows Itself.&amp;quot;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt; &lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;table cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" class="MsoNormalTable"&gt; &lt;tbody&gt;&lt;tr&gt; &lt;td&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt; &lt;i&gt; I was in a transcended experience of my own consciousness and primordial Awareness just simply by having this pointed out. (The transmission itself is called the Pointing Out Instructions.) With this new form, clearly in contradiction to my Vipassana practice, everything changed.&lt;/i&gt; &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt; &lt;/span&gt;&lt;/td&gt; &lt;/tr&gt; &lt;/tbody&gt;&lt;/table&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;While on retreat at Elat Chaim last year, I heard Eliezer Sobel tell the story of how he went to see Tsoknyi Rinpoche. Eliezer said he was not surprised when he heard Tsoknyi say, &amp;quot;Do not hang out in the past.&amp;quot; Eliezer yawned when he heard Tsoknyi say, &amp;quot;Do not hang out in the future.&amp;quot; But Eliezer was completely blown away when he heard Tsoknyi say, &amp;quot;But, above all, do not hang out in the present.&amp;quot;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;The present, as Eliezer then explained, is still in the &amp;quot;time stream.&amp;quot; The time stream is a construct of thought. The dzogchen practice is to step&lt;/span&gt; &lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;&lt;i&gt;outside of time&lt;/i&gt;&lt;/span&gt; &lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;to notice that which is neither then nor now nor later. The moment of non-dual awareness cannot be compared to anything within time. As J. Krishanamurti used to say, it is completely revolutionary. As Ganga-ji says, it won't get you anything, but is &amp;quot;its own good news.&amp;quot;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;table cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" class="MsoNormalTable"&gt; &lt;tbody&gt;&lt;tr&gt; &lt;td&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt; &lt;i&gt; &lt;/i&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;i&gt; So my sitting from that time on (for at least ten years) has been relaxed and open to whatever arises. On the positive side, the ease of the practice brings with it a sense of spaciousness and freedom. Within it, a sense of liberation arises, and deepening of the wisdom of emptiness seems to grow on its own. My annual retreats with Tsoknyi over the years brought increasingly wonderful insights in the dzogchen modality, which, as I understand it, is very close to the Mahamudra teaching that you speak about.&lt;/i&gt; &lt;/span&gt;&lt;/td&gt; &lt;/tr&gt; &lt;/tbody&gt;&lt;/table&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt; &lt;br /&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;We are on the same page. As I understand it, there is no fundamental difference between dzogchen and mahamudra. Both point to that which is beyond time and space, but which is present in each and every moment of experience - the simple quality of awareness. When all of the contents of the mind are allowed to arise and pass away naturally,&lt;/span&gt; &lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;&lt;i&gt;Knowing&lt;/i&gt;&lt;/span&gt; &lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;is revealed as the only constant. When Knowing knows itself, there is nothing more to be done.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;&lt;br /&gt; &lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;table cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" class="MsoNormalTable"&gt; &lt;tbody&gt;&lt;tr&gt; &lt;td&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt; &lt;i&gt; The downside of this practice is the inclination to drift away, which itself is a major distraction. Sitting with alertness allows the presence of Awareness to simply be &amp;quot;what is,&amp;quot; and this works quite well. But without an anchor, so to speak, there is a tendency to graze the inner territory with realizing that one is a grazing like a cow, completely oblivious, as opposed to allowing whatever arises to happen with the essential alertness that one always has of &amp;quot;knowing&amp;quot; that one is grazing (ever alert with an observant consciousness.)&lt;/i&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt; &lt;br /&gt;&lt;i&gt; Not being distracted is not so easy in a busy world. So when I am doing my regular morning (non) meditation, I have discovered that it is ever so easy to drift away. The more free time I have throughout each day, the less I drift.&lt;/i&gt; &lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/td&gt; &lt;/tr&gt; &lt;/tbody&gt;&lt;/table&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt; &lt;br /&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;This is important for me to hear. I have to be reminded that I cannot reasonably extrapolate my experience to others. This mind doesn't wander as much as it once did. It is fairly compliant. But I remember. And you are right. One way or another, the mind must be trained. This reminds me of a nifty little saying that is attributed to the Buddha: &amp;quot;It is good to tame the mind, because a well-tamed mind brings happiness.&amp;quot;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;When the mind is tamed to the point where it will rest, undistracted, in primordial awareness, happiness is inevitable.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt; &lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;table cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" class="MsoNormalTable"&gt; &lt;tbody&gt;&lt;tr&gt; &lt;td&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt; &lt;i&gt; Just a few days ago, I began to follow the development instructions you are outlining (beautifully, I might add), and instead of sitting in naked awareness, I began to hold the concentration in the way I was trained many decades ago. Almost immediately, within the first five minutes, my mind said quite loudly, &amp;quot;Oh, I remember this!&amp;quot; And it was happy, joyful to remember what happens to one's consciousness when simple concentration is applied.&lt;/i&gt; &lt;br /&gt;&lt;i&gt; It was interesting to note, as a beginning meditator notes, the scattered thoughts of the chicken farm. But there was already a different quality to that experience. Whereas an untrained meditator tries to control the mind, to zero in on the chicken, my access to more advanced practice along with the depth of Realization that I have experienced, it was a delightful sit exploring the physical and emotional experiences of the first nana, the very first step on the ladder. &lt;/i&gt; &lt;/span&gt;&lt;/td&gt; &lt;/tr&gt; &lt;/tbody&gt;&lt;/table&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt; &lt;br /&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;This is huge! The beginning meditator shoots himself in the foot by imagining that he must continue to apply effort in order to hold onto the experience (i.e. the same kind of effort that got him there in the first place). By holding onto the very mental factor which must be released in order for the next phase of concentration to arise, the untrained meditator actually prevents himself from settling into the next phase. Jhanas are defined by what is lost as you move from one to the next. It is always a matter of letting go into the next experience.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt; &lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;table cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" class="MsoNormalTable"&gt; &lt;tbody&gt;&lt;tr&gt; &lt;td&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt; &lt;i&gt; Yesterday, I put together the first nana with the first jhana (I'm still not completely sure of the difference), which for me was like an exhalation, a release, a very familiar place that I never &amp;quot;named.&amp;quot; Your analogy of the pillow case has been very instructive, for my inclination is to quickly investigate and probe in a way the moves me into mindfulness. So, yesterday and today I have been more surrendered and more focused in allowing the shades of consciousness to reveal themselves as they will. &lt;/i&gt; &lt;/span&gt;&lt;/td&gt; &lt;/tr&gt; &lt;/tbody&gt;&lt;/table&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt; &lt;br /&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;Excellent. As you continue this comparison of vipassana vs. samatha, the difference will become ever more apparent&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;&lt;br /&gt; &lt;br /&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;The first&lt;/span&gt; &lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;&lt;i&gt;ñana &lt;/i&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;is the insight that arises when the stratum of mind where the first&lt;/span&gt; &lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;&lt;i&gt;jhana &lt;/i&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;lives is explored via the vipassana technique. Same territory, different lens.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt; &lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;table cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" class="MsoNormalTable"&gt; &lt;tbody&gt;&lt;tr&gt; &lt;td&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt; &lt;i&gt; Today, I started with a meditation on the breath, and stayed with it to see what would happen. After a while, the ground shifted from a kind of symphony of sound, to clearly noticing individual instruments. I kept coming back to the breath, but it was clear that without seeking anything, I was on a deeper layer of concentration than the previous day. Accompanying this was a persistent inner glowing light that I had experienced in 1999 on a three month retreat. On that retreat, the glow lasted for hours every day for two of the three months. &lt;/i&gt; &lt;/span&gt;&lt;/td&gt; &lt;/tr&gt; &lt;/tbody&gt;&lt;/table&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt; &lt;br /&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;I'll be interested to hear what you conclude as you continue to explore this territory via the samatha technique. This last description sounds to me more like the second jhana than the first. As you say, you were &amp;quot;on a deeper layer of concentration than the previous day.&amp;quot; You can test it by grasping your nose with an imaginary thumb and forefinger, and sustaining the slight, continuous effort that is required to do that. If you can do that, you are in the first jhana. This ability to point and sustain the attention on the object in a very tight focus is one of the mental factors that is unique to the first jhana and must be left behind in order to move to the second. If it feels forced, as though the mental gesture is dragging you out of a deeper state, you are in a more advanced jhana (in this case, probably the second). If so, when you abandon the imaginary nose tweaking, you will settle back into whatever jhana you were in.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt; &lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;table cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" class="MsoNormalTable"&gt; &lt;tbody&gt;&lt;tr&gt; &lt;td&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt; &lt;i&gt; Today this felt to me like a fixation. I just sat with it for a long time for most of the sit. When it was time to move on from the meditation, I realized that if I had been on retreat I might have continued sitting for a number of hours with the inner light and the ground with its individualized sounds. But as I moved to end the sit, everything slowly collapsed, one by one, into my &amp;quot;mundane,&amp;quot; everyday mind.&lt;/i&gt; &lt;/span&gt;&lt;/td&gt; &lt;/tr&gt; &lt;/tbody&gt;&lt;/table&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt; &lt;br /&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;This is good description of the way the mind returns to its habitual state after emerging from jhana. Another way to describe it would be to say that the mind reconstructs itself, layer by layer, until all layers are present and the grossest phenomena take center stage.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;&lt;br /&gt; &lt;br /&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;It is fine that it feels like a fixation. Jhana&lt;/span&gt; &lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;&lt;i&gt;is &lt;/i&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;fixation. But that does not in any way conflict with the rigpa instructions. For now, it will be better to consciously decide, in advance, to do one or the other. Once you master jhana, you can do both at the same time. To paraphrase one of my favorite meditation teachers, there is plenty of room within the boundlessness of rigpa for a little fixation.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt; &lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;table cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" class="MsoNormalTable"&gt; &lt;tbody&gt;&lt;tr&gt; &lt;td&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt; &lt;i&gt; The bottom line is that it feels very good to begin practicing concentration once again, especially with the experience I am bringing to it. It feels tremendously powerful and positive to follow what you have outlined so far.&lt;/i&gt; &lt;/span&gt;&lt;/td&gt; &lt;/tr&gt; &lt;/tbody&gt;&lt;/table&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt; &lt;br /&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;Your concentration is obviously very well developed. Don't be surprised if you see more jhanas soon. And I am eager to hear about what happens when you practice with a&lt;/span&gt; &lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;&lt;i&gt;kasina &lt;/i&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;object, which is the best way I know of to develop &amp;quot;rock solid&amp;quot; jhana.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt; &lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;table cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" class="MsoNormalTable"&gt; &lt;tbody&gt;&lt;tr&gt; &lt;td width="1%"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt; &lt;i&gt; In your description of samatha jhana, from lightness to rock solid, I am wondering about my sense of fixation on the inner light as described above. It held rock solid steady for many hours each day for a couple of months. Since that experience, I have been able to invoke it at any time.&lt;/i&gt; &lt;/span&gt;&lt;/td&gt; &lt;/tr&gt; &lt;/tbody&gt;&lt;/table&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt; &lt;br /&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;You have already developed that jhana at some time in the past. Now you &amp;quot;own it.&amp;quot; You can access it at any time via either the vipassana or samatha technique. As such, that particular jhana, which I suspect is the second, will be an excellent laboratory for doing A/B comparisons of the vipassana and samatha technique, and for practicing the four parameters for mastery of a jhana, viz. adverting, entering, abiding (dwelling), and exiting. The inner light is called the&lt;/span&gt; &lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;&lt;i&gt;nimitta&lt;/i&gt;&lt;/span&gt; &lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;or &amp;quot;sign of&lt;/span&gt; &lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;&lt;i&gt;samadhi&lt;/i&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;.&amp;quot; More on this below.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt; &lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;table cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" class="MsoNormalTable"&gt; &lt;tbody&gt;&lt;tr&gt; &lt;td&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt; &lt;i&gt; In some ways, I identify this inner light as a gateway to emptiness. But the possibility of my clinging mind concerned me. After a number of years, I consulted with Tsoknyi, not describing the inner light but rather my question was, &amp;quot;I seem to be holding on to emptiness; is that o.k. for my practice?&amp;quot;&lt;/i&gt; &lt;/span&gt;&lt;/td&gt; &lt;/tr&gt; &lt;tr&gt; &lt;td&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt; &lt;i&gt; His response: &amp;quot;Stop Meditating!&amp;quot; His view is that is it more difficult to stop a practice than to begin one and in the dzogchen world, one never holds on to any kind of practice&amp;mdash;one should be able to cut through (trekchod) any mind set at any time. Any kind of clinging is unskillful practice. This appears to be a major contradiction to the idea of &amp;quot;hard jhana.&amp;quot; I'm o.k. with the contradiction, but just want to clarify.&lt;/i&gt; &lt;/span&gt;&lt;/td&gt; &lt;/tr&gt; &lt;/tbody&gt;&lt;/table&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt; &lt;br /&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;It isn't possible to hold onto emptiness, if by emptiness you mean primordial awareness. That is why your teacher knew you were meditating. You were holding onto your concept of emptiness. Emptiness is that which cannot be held onto.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;&amp;quot;Hard jhana&amp;quot; has nothing to do with emptiness. All jhana is an illusion, just as your life is an illusion. Primordial awareness is beyond all of that, and gives birth to it. Jhana is like changing a spare tire, or eating, or defecating. It is purely a construct of the mind, and exists within time. It has its value as part of a full human life, but must not be confused with emptiness. It is possible, (and encouraged!) to notice emptiness from within jhana, or jhana from within emptiness. But emptiness looks the same whether it is seen from within the illusion of jhana or the illusion of the experience of driving a car. While driving a car you must hold the steering wheel tightly in order to avoid damaging your (illusory) body. Awareness is operating equally whether driving or experiencing jhana. Hold onto the wheel, and hold onto jhana, but Awareness is beyond being held. There are times when it is a good idea to contract into the small self in order to accomplish some task or respond to a situation. Driving a car comes to mind, especially in a crisis. All of your attention must be brought to bear in the mundane world in order to avert disaster. Of course, most of the time driving a car is automatic, and driving is one of my favorite times to practice rigpa. With practice, jhana is as automatic as driving a car, and your practice time can serve double duty. But until you feel very at-home in the jhanas, I recommend putting non-dual practice aside while you apply all of your attention to the object of concentration.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;By the way, I think you have seen that although the object of awareness can be the breath, a mantra, or a&lt;/span&gt; &lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;&lt;i&gt;kasina &lt;/i&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;object, etc, once you enter jhana, the jhana itself becomes the object. You pay attention to the pleasant sensations or visual manifestations of the jhana, and let yourself bathe in the jhana as it becomes ever more solid.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;Your inner light may indeed be a gateway to emptiness, if for you the inner light represents a concentrated state from which you can &amp;quot;see through&amp;quot; the contents of the mind to its essence. But herein lies a trap. There are infinite gateways to emptiness, as there is no situation in which Awareness is not present. The price of admission to emptiness is simply to turn toward it. If you were to equate the inner light with emptiness you might miss the myriad opportunities that arise in each moment.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt; &lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;table cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" class="MsoNormalTable"&gt; &lt;tbody&gt;&lt;tr&gt; &lt;td&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt; &lt;i&gt; I remembered an interesting point out of the blue this morning during my practice. A number of years ago, one of the teachers was a younger man in the Vipassana world who had just finished a period of time in Burma with U Pandita. Clearly he had been impressed with this experience, and he kept saying things like: &amp;quot;Get in close with the breath,&amp;quot; &amp;quot;Become one with the breath,&amp;quot; &amp;quot;Get tight, closer, closer with each breath.&amp;quot; &lt;/i&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;i&gt; I remember his passion and intensity. Something had touched him. I also remember that I was put off by the instruction as it seemed too pushy, too much effort. (By the way, it turned out that this young teacher ended up very influenced by Papaji, and for a while became an Advaitist, and then moved to Tibetan practice when he got one of the early copies of the Flight of the Garuda&amp;mdash;which I have found to be an extraordinary text that most of my students are unable to understand!)&lt;/i&gt; &lt;br /&gt;&lt;i&gt; This idea of merging with the breath sounds very different from: &amp;quot;Relax, be with what is, etc.&amp;quot; Again, it is interesting that many Buddhist practitioners seem to focus on releasing the clinging mind as a key factor of practice&amp;mdash;the second and third of the four Noble Truths&amp;mdash;while these concentration practices, on the jhanic level, seem to invite a very tightening of focus, to the point of fixation, locked in, that sounds like hard jhana.&lt;/i&gt; &lt;/span&gt;&lt;/td&gt; &lt;/tr&gt; &lt;/tbody&gt;&lt;/table&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt; &lt;br /&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;I agree with you that &amp;quot;relax and be with what is,&amp;quot; is different from &amp;quot;fixate on this jhana.&amp;quot; We must be careful not to make a category error. Jhana is apples and rigpa is oranges. Rigpa contains jhana but is not limited to it. In other words, you can stand aside and let rigpa be as it is even as you stand aside and let your illusory self fixate on jhana. And you can learn to allow them to happen simultaneously. It isn't you in either case&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;&lt;br /&gt; &lt;br /&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;Anything within time cannot be compared to rigpa. Primordial awareness&lt;/span&gt; &lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;&lt;i&gt;just is&lt;/i&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;, and can be noticed anytime. Any strain that goes into the noticing will just prevent the noticing from being continuous, as the noticing mind veers away from its intended target as in the first phase of chickenherding.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt; &lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;table cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" class="MsoNormalTable"&gt; &lt;tbody&gt;&lt;tr&gt; &lt;td&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt; &lt;i&gt; At this point, if in fact I was touching the 1st Jhana during the past couple of days, it's main feature is a calmness in comparison with my ordinary state of mind. At its depth, equanimity may reside, but it is not yet identifiable. I can feel the potential for joy and bliss, but, again, they are not clearly part of the initial experience. So, the fresh baked bread of calmness (exhilaration?) is the most notable feature.&lt;/i&gt; &lt;/span&gt;&lt;/td&gt; &lt;/tr&gt; &lt;/tbody&gt;&lt;/table&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt; &lt;br /&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;Yes, this is a good point. Equanimity cannot be seen clearly, if at all, in the first three jhanas because it is too subtle to compete with the other, grosser jhanic factors. And the first jhana only seems exhilarating in comparison with the second and subsequent jhanas. In comparison with our &amp;quot;ordinary&amp;quot; mind states, even the first jhana is supremely calm. In any case, I am interested to see whether the jhana you experienced today reveals itself to be the first or second upon continued examination.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;At some point, I plan to write about the&lt;/span&gt; &lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;&lt;i&gt;nimitta&lt;/i&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;, or &amp;quot;sign of&lt;/span&gt; &lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;&lt;i&gt;samadhi&lt;/i&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;,&amp;quot; which is the main visual component of jhana, and is the source of the inner light you are describing. I have left it out of the description so far, as I find that it is not necessary in order to enter and explore jhanas, but it is significant and deserves a discussion of its own. It will be interesting to see how it relates to the lights you saw during your dark retreat.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;I eagerly await your next adventure in chickenherding!&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;</summary> <dc:creator>Kenneth Folk</dc:creator> <dc:date>2009-03-17T17:08:00Z</dc:date> </entry> <entry> <title>No Dog, Some Dog, and The Simplest Thing</title> <link rel="alternate" href="http://www.dharmaoverground.org/web/guest/testblog/-/blogs/no-dog-some-dog-and-the-simplest-thing" /> <author> <name>Daniel M. Ingram</name> </author> <id>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/web/guest/testblog/-/blogs/no-dog-some-dog-and-the-simplest-thing</id> <updated>2009-05-01T14:03:58Z</updated> <published>2009-03-13T14:03:00Z</published> <summary type="html">&lt;p&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;There has been a lot of reference to these three in various discussions, so I thought it might be good to have a page dedicated to exploring them. Please feel free to lend your thoughts.&lt;br /&gt; &lt;br /&gt; No Dog is a term coined by Kenneth and used to describe a state that we consider trans-jhanic, in that all the other jhanas can move through it. It is a very different perspective on them, and gives the whole thing a very different feel. It is almost like a profoundly skillful dissociation, or another quantum level of equanimity, in that, when one is in No Dog, there is no investment in which jhana or ñana is manifesting, or, as the term implies, you have no dog in that fight. In this way, No Dog imparts a very high level of feeling one has transcended the ordinary fascination with cycles, states, stages, qualities of experience, etc. They cycle through, and we feel largely untouched by their coming and going. We use the term No Dog as it is as good as anything else we could come up with and because we do not see a precise correlate in the standard texts, sort of... &lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt; &lt;div&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;&lt;br /&gt; I remember the first time I chanced on to No Dog, and it happened to be just a few seconds after the Fruition that got me arahatship. When the mind flipped into that way of perceiving things, it was for me that that time everything I was looking for. As an anagami, I had become so sick of cycles and cycles and cycles that the transcendence of No Dog was absolutely amazing. Cycles occurred, and the only thing of relevance was staying in No Dog. I associated it with the term Wisdom Eye, and my whole goal at that point was keeping in that state. The only problem was it didn&amp;rsquo;t last... &lt;/span&gt;&lt;/div&gt; &lt;div&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;&lt;br /&gt; No Dog would fade back into a state that we have come to call Some Dog, which is the default state for those who are not in No Dog. In Some Dog, one cares about qualities, even subtle qualities, and cycles, and stages, and states, and the specifics, whereas when one is in No Dog, No Dog is the best game in town and what cycle or stage or whatever happens to be going on within the framework of No Dog is basically irrelevant. &lt;/span&gt;&lt;/div&gt; &lt;div&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;&lt;br /&gt; Thus, on that retreat, I would fade back to Some Dog, get frustrated by the cycles, realize this, find No Dog again, which was just a question of looking for it, and for a few hours would be ok, until Some Dog would set in again, and so forth and so on for about a week. The problem with No Dog is that it is conditioned, in that it comes and goes, I only found it after attaining arahatship, and thus, while amazing in its way, was not quite what I was looking for. &lt;/span&gt;&lt;/div&gt; &lt;div&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;&lt;br /&gt; Luckily that was not the end of the story. The retreat went on, and then this very strange convergence of things occurred. It was hard to explain, but during it, I realized something very important: Some Dog and No Dog are both of the same nature, both are conditioned, both are empty, both are just variations on the basic theme of perception, or manifestation, or luminosity, or suchness, or whatever you wish to call it... &lt;/span&gt;&lt;/div&gt; &lt;div&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;&lt;br /&gt; The Simplest Thing is what it has been called here recently. The Simplest Thing is one way of saying those other things. I like the old line, &amp;ldquo;In the seeing, just the seen. In the hearing, just the heard,&amp;rdquo; etc. I think it makes its point very clearly and concisely. It doesn&amp;rsquo;t get any more simple that that, and that was what I realized on that retreat. &lt;/span&gt;&lt;/div&gt; &lt;div&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;&lt;br /&gt; Now at times the mind inclines to No Dog and that is what shows up. At other times it inclines to Some Dog, and that is what shows up. These are conditioned phenomena, and they come and go. &lt;/span&gt;&lt;/div&gt; &lt;div&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;&lt;br /&gt; There will likely be debate below about exactly when one can attain to No Dog and exactly when one can attain to The Simplest Thing. I suspect that those with a somewhat more Vedantic perspective will try to argue that The Simplest Thing is always available, which is sort of true. I suspect that there are those who will try to say that No Dog can be attained by those below arahatship, and perhaps it can, though I had not seen anything that had its complete set of qualities before that. &lt;/span&gt;&lt;/div&gt; &lt;div&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;&lt;br /&gt; Those things said, I realized the deep truth of The Simplest Thing in all its ordinary glory when I got over my fascination with No Dog and my dislike of Some Dog and found that they are finally not the point. Noticing things as they are is the point, directly, clearly, completely and in a way that is not bound up in specific perspectives that are conditioned was what got me to the thing that has lasted for these nearly 6 years, and so I advocate simply giving No Dog its due, realizing that its true nature is the same as Some Dog, and finding that common ground that all things share. &lt;/span&gt;&lt;/div&gt; &lt;div&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;&lt;br /&gt; I spent some time this afternoon checking both out, going back and forth from No Dog to Some Dog, from the transcendent to the immersed, and was pleased to come to the same conclusion: they are different, but both have their points, and neither has a more elevated place from the point of view of The Simplest Thing. &lt;/span&gt;&lt;/div&gt; &lt;div&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;&lt;br /&gt; I am going to weigh in on when The Simplest Thing can be attained, and I will claim that really knowing it completely as one&amp;rsquo;s baseline is synonymous with The Goal, whatever you wish to call it. Thus, while aspects are obviously available at all times, really knowing it is the end of the path of insight. &lt;/span&gt;&lt;/div&gt; &lt;div&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;&lt;br /&gt; I have debated the merits of taking No Dog as the path to The Simplest Thing, which has been talked about on the DhO. While fascination with No Dog is probably inevitable, and perhaps should be considered a distinct stage of development, beyond that, I don&amp;rsquo;t think that it is, in and of itself, the key to The Goal, except for seeing the common elements between it and Some Dog. &lt;/span&gt;&lt;/div&gt; &lt;div&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;&lt;br /&gt; I do think that No Dog is a very important attainment, just like I like the Formless Realms, The Pure Land Jhanas and Nirodha Samapatti, and No Dog is even one better, but I think that one must finally come to a place where even that is seen as just one more variation or motif on the basic theme that phenomena manifest in various ways and realization must be found in a way that is not bound up in any specifics, and that includes No Dog.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</summary> <dc:creator>Daniel M. Ingram</dc:creator> <dc:date>2009-03-13T14:03:00Z</dc:date> </entry> <entry> <title>The Boy Who Found the Great Ocean</title> <link rel="alternate" href="http://www.dharmaoverground.org/web/guest/testblog/-/blogs/the-boy-who-found-the-great-ocean" /> <author> <name>Kenneth Folk</name> </author> <id>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/web/guest/testblog/-/blogs/the-boy-who-found-the-great-ocean</id> <updated>2009-05-01T14:01:24Z</updated> <published>2009-03-10T14:00:00Z</published> <summary type="html">&lt;p&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;Putujjana had heard of the great ocean. On full moon nights the whole village would gather around the fire and Mighty Medicine Woman would tell stories. She told of a great ocean, far away, beyond four rivers. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt; One morning, Putujjana went to his mother and said, &amp;quot;Mother, will you tell me how to get to the great ocean?&amp;quot; &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt; &amp;quot;I've never been to the great ocean,&amp;quot; said Putujjana's mother. &amp;quot;I can't tell you how to get there, because I don't know.&amp;quot; &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt; Then, Putujjana went to his father and said, &amp;quot;Father, will you tell me how to get to the great ocean?&amp;quot; &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt; &amp;quot;I've never been to the great ocean,&amp;quot; said Putujjana's father. &amp;quot;I can't tell you how to get there, because I don't know.&amp;quot; &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt; So Putujjana went to Mighty Medicine Woman and said, &amp;quot;Mighty Medicine Woman, will you tell me how to get to the great ocean?&amp;quot; &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt; But Mighty Medicine said, &amp;quot;I've never been to the great ocean. I can't tell you how to get there, because I don't know.&amp;quot; &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Putujjana asked, &amp;quot;How can you not know? You are Mighty Medicine Woman. You tell stories of the great ocean every full moon night.&amp;quot; &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt; &amp;quot;I tell stories because they were told to me,&amp;quot; said Mighty Medicine Woman. &amp;quot;I tell stories. That's what Mighty Medicine Women do.&amp;quot; &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt; Putujjana was very disappointed. He decided to find the great ocean for himself. He would leave the very next day. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;In the morning, before dawn, Putujjana left his family's hut and set out to find the great ocean. At the edge of the village, he was surprised to find his mother, his father, and Mighty Medicine Woman waiting for him. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt; &amp;quot;We're going with you,&amp;quot; said Putujjana's mother, &amp;quot;to find the great ocean.&amp;quot; &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Putujjana was very happy. Together with his mother, his father, and Mighty Medicine Woman, Putujjana set out to find the great ocean. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;After many days and much hardship, Putujjana, along with his mother and father and Mighty Medicine woman, reached the banks of the first river. They met a traveler from the other side of the river and asked him, &amp;quot;What's it like on the other side?&amp;quot; &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt; &amp;quot;On the other side of the first river,&amp;quot; said the traveler, &amp;quot;there are four seasons.&amp;quot; &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Putujjana's mother stopped. &amp;quot;The other side of the first river is not a suitable place for a mother,&amp;quot; she said. &amp;quot;I'm going back to our village, where it's always springtime. But before I go, Putujjana, I will give you my blessing: May you work hard, and thereby attain your heart's desire.&amp;quot; &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt; Then she kissed Putujjana three times on the forehead and began walking back the way she had come. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Putujjana was very sad. He cried seven tears. Then, together with his father and Mighty Medicine Woman, Putujjana crossed the first river and continued his quest for the great ocean. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;After many days and much hardship, Putujjana, along with his father and Mighty Medicine Woman, reached the banks of the second river. They met a traveler from the other side and asked him, &amp;quot;What's it like on the other side?&amp;quot; &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt; &amp;quot;On the other side of the second river,&amp;quot; said the traveler, &amp;quot;there is night, as well as day.&amp;quot; &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Putujjana's father stopped. &amp;quot;The other side of the second river is not a suitable place for a father,&amp;quot; he said. &amp;quot;I'm going back to our village, where the sun always shines. But before I go, Putujjana, I will give you my blessing: May you realize that you and your heart's desire are one.&amp;quot; &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt; Then he turned three times in a circle and vanished in a flash of light. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Putujjana was very angry. He spat on the ground seven times. Then, together with Mighty Medicine Woman, Putujjana crossed the second river and continued his quest for the great ocean. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;After many days and much hardship, Putujjana and Mighty Medicine Woman came to the banks of the third river. They met a traveler from the other side and asked him, &amp;quot;What's it like on the other side?&amp;quot; &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt; &amp;quot;On the other side of the third river,&amp;quot; said the traveler, &amp;quot;there is death, as well as life.&amp;quot; &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Mighty Medicine Woman stopped. &amp;quot;The other side of the third river is not a suitable place for a Mighty Medicine Woman,&amp;quot; she said. &amp;quot;I'm going back to our village, where people live forever, and no one ever dies. But before I go, Putujjana, I will give you my blessing: May you give up your heart's desire, and in so doing, find a much greater gift.&amp;quot; &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt; Putujjana turned to beg Mighty Medicine Woman to stay. But she was already gone. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Putujjana was heartbroken. Without his mother, his father, and Mighty Medicine Woman, how could he go on? He could not go forward and he could not go back. He lay down on the cold ground for seven days and seven nights. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;After seven days and seven nights, Putujjana got up, and alone, with no one to comfort him, crossed the third river and continued his quest for the great ocean. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;After many days and much hardship, Putujjana came to the banks of the fourth river. He met a traveler from the other shore and asked him, &amp;quot;What's it like on the other shore?&amp;quot; &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt; &amp;quot;On the other shore,&amp;quot; said the traveler, &amp;quot;things are as they are.&amp;quot; &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Putujjana did not hesitate. He crossed the fourth river and found himself on the shore of the great ocean. He heard voices, and was surprised to see his mother, father and Mighty Medicine Woman floating on the waves in a wooden ship and calling to him, &amp;quot;Putujjana, come join us! We will sail the great ocean for all eternity!&amp;quot; &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt; The young man who had once been called Putujjana smiled and waved. The great ocean was already lapping at his feet.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Kenneth Folk&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;1993&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;</summary> <dc:creator>Kenneth Folk</dc:creator> <dc:date>2009-03-10T14:00:00Z</dc:date> </entry> <entry> <title>Fundamental View</title> <link rel="alternate" href="http://www.dharmaoverground.org/web/guest/testblog/-/blogs/fundamental-view" /> <author> <name>Hokai Sobol</name> </author> <id>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/web/guest/testblog/-/blogs/fundamental-view</id> <updated>2009-05-01T05:24:57Z</updated> <published>2009-03-07T06:22:00Z</published> <summary type="html">&lt;p&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;&lt;b&gt;The Importance of View&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;It is one of postmodern indisputable discoveries that &amp;bdquo;context is everything&amp;ldquo; or, well, almost everything. The crucial importance of right view has been recognized by every generation of Buddhist masters. From Gautama the Buddha to Nagarjuna the &amp;quot;second Buddha&amp;ldquo; to mahasiddhas of the tantric revolution to Ch'an/Zen masters...&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Though formulations of the View have been shifting significantly, they retained the distinct central Buddhist purpose, namely to point out the Middle beyond extremes. Four truths and the eightfold path, dependent co-arising, emptiness, the Middle, Suchness, buddha-nature, relative and ultimate bodhicitta, no-thing-ness, one taste etc. etc. every school has brought a fresh unfolding to the lotus of clarity and a new spin to the dharma-wheel. And then the whole unfolding took a break until..... the 20th/21st century meeting of all schools and formulations. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The purpose of the View is to establish a general map-like orientation in practitioners' minds and to safeguard one's spiritual progress through the stages of the path, thus the View is one's pocket-guru (think an enlightened pokemon). Another purpose of the View is to serve as ground for culture and policy. There are what we may consider a variety of Buddhist views on as a wide range of subjects as you may think of. But then there's the View not as the totality of these particular views, but more fundamentally as the way we approach, understand, consider, and conceptualize the essential triune issue of Ground, Path and Fruition. In addition to that, at various stages of the path we are required to hold certain views that have to do with specifics of the challenge faced in our practice. Thus, the View will inform and guide one's practice as well as enable one to situate the resulting experiences in a meaningful context, thus allowing for a no-nonsense interpretation of both generalities and relevant details. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;In short, cultivating the View means cultivating right understanding, by learning, examining, pondering, questioning, and experiencing for ourselves. Right understanding, in the Buddhist context, means understanding the Buddhist view, which is the middle view &lt;b&gt;&lt;i&gt;beyond&lt;/i&gt;&lt;/b&gt; eternalism and nihilism.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;In traditional terms, prior to awakening, the View is those tenets of Dharma that guide and direct one's practice, i.e. the right view(s), accepted not as mere beliefs, but after reflecting on their meaning and checking with one's present experience. After awakening, it's those modalities and interpretations that safeguard the integration of realization into every lived experience, AND that maximize an effective sharing of realization in culture and society. As such the View has a relative and an ultimate aspect, i.e. two truths. Plus, the formulation of such View will shift with the level of structural development (see addendum). So I would say the View has three important dimensions that need to be meaningfully integrated at every step. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Every great tradition and lineage has it's own preferred formulation of the View (including the ultimate component, even if only to say they refrain from over-formulating it). In Theravada/vipassana it could be summed-up perhaps as &amp;quot;Four truths, dependent co-arising, and three characteristics&amp;quot;. The second turning will emphasize emptiness, while the third turning will reveal buddha-nature. Most of these orthodoxies (lit. right views) have been codified in a premodern structural context, so that now we're struggling with a massive overhaul in which neither doing away with everything traditional nor preserving the tradition intact is an option. This website is a symptom of such an overhaul, with an emphasis on practical application and pragmatism. Enter the fourth revolution of the dharmacakra. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;div align="center"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;~ ~&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;b&gt;The Four Seals of the Buddhist View&lt;/b&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;ul&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;&lt;font face="Helvetica"&gt;All compounded things are impermanent. &lt;/font&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;&lt;font face="Helvetica"&gt; All phenomena are empty, without inherent existence. &lt;/font&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;&lt;font face="Helvetica"&gt; All dualistic experience is intrinsically painful.&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;&lt;font face="Helvetica"&gt; Nirvana alone is peace, and is beyond concept.&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;div align="center"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;~ ~&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;b&gt;Addendum&lt;/b&gt;&lt;br /&gt;What we have become aware of more recently is that views and their expressions go through shifts of a deep, structural nature, sometimes called paradigm shifts. We have become aware of worldviews, contexts, and perspectives. We have awoken to evolution and deep development in all domains. Thus, as humanity we have so far gone through at least half a dozen structural and cultural emergencies. The ones we encounter alive and kicking today are traditional, modern, and postmodern, and what is common to them is that each sees the other two as being mostly if not completely wrong through and through, the product of which are the many culture wars on every possible front. Thus we have a traditional Buddhism, a modern Buddhism, and a postmodern Buddhism, not just as phases in historical emergence but also styles of upholding the teaching here and now. At Dharma Overground we tend to intuitively embrace what's best from each of these three paradigms, thus aiming for a meaningful integration of their partial truths in a truly post-sectarian context, without diluting the important differences of schools and vehicles, while endorsing a post-postmodern emergent Dharma. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;b&gt;Links: &lt;/b&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Early teaching: &amp;quot;Discourse on right view&amp;quot;: &lt;/span&gt;&lt;a class="external" href="http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/mn/mn.009.ntbb.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;Translation 1&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;, &lt;/span&gt;&lt;a class="external" href="http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/mn/mn.009.than.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;translation 2&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Plus:&lt;/span&gt; &amp;quot;&lt;a class="external" href="http://www.shambhalasun.com/index.php?option=content&amp;amp;task=view&amp;amp;id=1814" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;Buddhism in a Nutshell&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&amp;quot;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;, Dzongsar Khyentse on four seals&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;</summary> <dc:creator>Hokai Sobol</dc:creator> <dc:date>2009-03-07T06:22:00Z</dc:date> </entry> <entry> <title>Physio-energetic and Psychological Models of Enlightenment</title> <link rel="alternate" href="http://www.dharmaoverground.org/web/guest/testblog/-/blogs/physio-energetic-and-psychological-models-of-enlightenment" /> <author> <name>Kenneth Folk</name> </author> <id>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/web/guest/testblog/-/blogs/physio-energetic-and-psychological-models-of-enlightenment</id> <updated>2009-05-01T13:59:57Z</updated> <published>2009-03-06T14:59:00Z</published> <summary type="html">&lt;p&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;There are, generally speaking, two ways to model enlightenment. One way involves what happens in the body, while the other describes changes in the mind. We can refer to these two contrasting modeling styles as physio-energetic and psychological, respectively. While this kind of artificial duality is simplistic, it is useful in understanding and creating effective models. An effective model is one that both describes the experience of enlightened people at the various levels, and predicts the experience of those who are working toward enlightenment.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;b&gt;A Physio-energetic Model&lt;/b&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;An example of a purely physio-energetic model would be a modified Theravada Buddhist model that describes observable phenomena, without regard to what a yogi thinks. For example, you might say that at some point a yogi experiences solid physical pain. With continued practice, the pain breaks up into its constituent parts of tingling and vibration. I have just described the 3rd and 4th ñanas of the Theravada model, without any reference to what the yogi thinks about his experience. We could go on to say that the yogi feels cool tingling on the skin and what seems to be a descending flow of energy in the body (5th ñana). Soon thereafter, he feels discordant pulsing and vibrating in various parts of the body, as well as unpleasant mental vibrations. These vibrations happen all at once, at various frequencies and levels of intensity, so that the overall effect is similar to that of jarring, dissonant music. This corresponds to the 10th ñana, knowledge of re-observation. Later, the vibrations become smooth and pleasant, and meditation becomes effortless (11th ñana, knowledge of equanimity.)&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;At no point in the presentation of this model has it been necessary to resort to the yogi&amp;rsquo;s thought process. This is in direct contrast to a psychological model, which is all about what a yogi thinks.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;b&gt;A Psychological Model&lt;/b&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;My favorite psychological model is that of the &amp;ldquo;Five Ranks of Tozan.&amp;rdquo; According to this system, a yogi will eventually come to the point where he can see, in real time, that there &amp;ldquo;aren&amp;rsquo;t two things;&amp;rdquo; all of experience is an undivided whole, permeated by and not other than awareness. At this stage, the yogi is officially enlightened. But his understanding is limited, as he is ignoring that fact that, although there aren&amp;rsquo;t two things, most people experience life as divided into thoughts of self and other. The enlightened yogi of the Third Rank can keep himself above the petty concerns of daily life, but has isolated himself from those that do not share his advanced vision. Although he can be a great inspiration to others who seek to emulate his detachment, he cannot relate to them on the most basic human level, a level which frankly requires the perception of duality. The Third Rank yogi is manifesting the notorious &amp;ldquo;stink of enlightenment&amp;rdquo; for all to see.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;At some point, the enlightened Third Rank yogi, who has become accustomed to thinking of himself as unaffected by trivial human concerns may come to the rude awakening that he is still walking around in a human body, and thus subject to karma. He will step in a big bucket of dukkha, and be unceremoniously ejected from his throne. This is the fall from grace, the Fourth Rank of Tozan. He will feel humble and human, and seek to pick up the tattered threads of his life.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;After living as an ordinary chump for some period of time, the yogi may find that although he cannot escape his own karma, he is still infinitely better off than he was before his enlightenment. He still has access to the glorious non-duality of the Third Rank. He can manifest it at will, and finds that, if wielded skillfully, the stink of enlightenment, tempered by the humility of the fall, can be of great benefit to others. He realizes that there is nothing left to do with his life but to help &amp;ldquo;others&amp;rdquo; discover what he has learned. He consciously chooses to spend his time pretending to be &amp;ldquo;other,&amp;rdquo; for the benefit of those around him. He has reached the Fifth Rank of Tozan, the ideal of Zen Budhism.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Notice that throughout the explication of the five ranks it was not necessary to refer to any physio-energetic phenomenon. The five ranks model deals exclusively with what is going on in the yogi&amp;rsquo;s mind. This is a purely psychological model.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;b&gt;Hybrid Models&lt;/b&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;It is, of course, possible to combine aspects of the physio-energetic and psychological models, in an effort to provide a more complete picture of the yogi&amp;rsquo;s progress. The Theravada model of janas and ñanas is one such hybrid. The insight knowledges (ñanas) are described by Mahasi Sayadaw and others using both physical and psychological language. The 4th ñana (knowledge of the arising and passing away of phenomena), for example, is characterized by subtle vibrations, the perception of lights, great happiness, and feelings of unity. This kind of hybridization works very well up to a point, and provides a more comprehensive description of the stages than either the physio-energetic or psychological models can do in isolation. But, while this kind of modeling does an excellent job of describing the insight knowledges, it fails to capture the overall trajectory of the process of enlightenment. In other words, to use Theravada Buddhist language, the hybrid model does not work across Paths.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;b&gt;The Problem with Hybrid Models&lt;/b&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;It is tempting to create a model describing what a typical yogi is able to &amp;ldquo;see&amp;rdquo; at each of the Four Paths of Enlightenment. You might, for example, say that a sotappana can see &lt;i&gt;w&lt;/i&gt;, a sakadagami can see &lt;i&gt;x&lt;/i&gt;, an anagami can &lt;i&gt;y&lt;/i&gt;, and an arahat can see &lt;i&gt;z&lt;/i&gt;. Unfortunately, there are too many instances of sotapannas who can see &lt;i&gt;y&lt;/i&gt;, and arahats who cannot see &lt;i&gt;x&lt;/i&gt;. To give a concrete example, we may define sakadagami as someone who can clearly see the cycling of the insight knowledges in his daily life. While this is likely true of someone who has trained in vipassana, and been exposed to the concepts and maps that describe these cycles, it is clear that some who have progressed well beyond this stage and have even gone on to the level of arahat do not see these cycles. What to do with data that does not fit the model? We are now in the uncomfortable position of either ignoring inconvenient data or completely overhauling the model. Another example is the pre-sotappana who can see emptiness in real time, an ability that is sometimes associated with anagamis. The more we ask around, the more we find people who do not behave as our model would have them behave.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;My latest thinking is that we need to do a lot more research and investigation before we can confidently build a model that integrates physio-energetic and psychological phenomena across the whole spectrum of enlightenment. Meanwhile, we should be hesitant use hybrid models to draw conclusions about the relative enlightenment of others, particularly when they are trained in a tradition other than our own.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;</summary> <dc:creator>Kenneth Folk</dc:creator> <dc:date>2009-03-06T14:59:00Z</dc:date> </entry> <entry> <title>A Dry Insight Technique for Attaining Path</title> <link rel="alternate" href="http://www.dharmaoverground.org/web/guest/testblog/-/blogs/a-dry-insight-technique-for-attaining-path" /> <author> <name>Kenneth Folk</name> </author> <id>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/web/guest/testblog/-/blogs/a-dry-insight-technique-for-attaining-path</id> <updated>2009-05-01T17:15:31Z</updated> <published>2009-03-05T18:06:00Z</published> <summary type="html">&lt;p&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;Let's say you've been sitting around in equanimity for some months or years. (If you are not in the equanimity ñana, you can read this for the sake of information, but it won't do you any good to try the exercise.) You know you are close to Path. You know that one way to progress is to gradually ripen in equanimity and wait for something to pop. But, what if you are gung-ho, full of energy and out of patience? Is there a dry insight technique whereby you can use effort to push through to the end of the cycle?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Try this:&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Choose some sensation within the body and stay with it until it pulses or vibrates, and stay with it some more to see what happens. For this exercise, you want to stay with one area, e.g. the knee, the foot, or the ankle, and be patient to see how subtle the vibrations get. Don't try to make them more subtle than they are, or force something that isn't there; just find out what's there. When you perceive vibrations, incline your mind toward the passing away of those sensations. Notice that things don't really &amp;quot;pass away,&amp;quot; they STOP. COLD. If you can see the stopping precisely enough, you will eventually have either a Path moment, completing one of the four Paths of Enlightenment, or a Fruition moment from a previously attained Path. Whether it is a Path or a Fruition, it will be experienced as a momentary loss of consciousness. This is Theravada &amp;quot;cessation of mind and body.&amp;quot; Upon emerging from that moment of unconsciousness, you know that you were somewhere very nice for awhile, but you can't say where you where. Traditionally, it's said that the mind &amp;quot;takes nibbana as object&amp;quot; during cessation.&lt;br /&gt; &lt;br /&gt;I first got some insight into how to cultivate cessation while riding a train. I had attained First Path several years ealier, was now working toward Second Path, and was traveling from Bangkok to Penang, Malaysia on the overnight second class, &amp;quot;no air-con&amp;quot; train. I was sitting by the window, looking out to my left at the passing trees. I noticed that if I looked straight out the window, perpendicular to the direction the train was traveling, all I saw was a green blur. But if I looked as far ahead as I could, then quickly turned my head left, toward the side of the train, everything would come momentarily into focus. It was like a freeze-frame. I became fascinated with this and did it over and over again. Blur, blur, blur, (turn head quickly) FREEZE-FRAME. Then my mind began to flutter along with the blurred trees going by. Flutter, flutter, flutter, flutter, STOP. Flutter, flutter, flutter, flutter, STOP. I intuitively knew that this was relevant to my practice, but I didn't know exactly how. And I didn't get 2nd Path at this time. But a couple of months later, at Sayadaw U Kundala's monastery in Rangoon, I remembered this freeze-frame phenomenon and put it together with what U Kundala was saying about &amp;quot;inclining the mind toward the passing away of phenomena.&amp;quot; &lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;Like so many yogis, I was not clear about how I had gotten First Path, so I was not able to reproduce it while working toward Second Path. I was just practicing vipassana, fishing around in the dark, waiting for something to happen. But now U Kundala's instruction and the train experience had given me a direction. I began looking at short, strobing vibrations in my mind, each one about a half second long. Imagine a strobe light at a frequency similar to the speed at which you can flutter your eyelids. Ftrrrrrrp. Ftrrrrrrp. Ftrrrrrrp. Ftrrrrrrp. Each time the vibration/flutter/strobe ended, I saw that it had a very discrete end-point. It stopped COLD. I began noticing that other phenomena behaved the same way. Someone would speak a word or a phrase and when he stopped speaking, there would be this abrupt ending point. Everything had a discreet ending point. It was while watching the clear, clean ending points of vibration/flutter/strobes in the mind that I attained Second Path during a sitting. Inclining the mind toward the &amp;quot;passing away&amp;quot; of phenomena is a very powerful technique for attaining either First or Second Path.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;</summary> <dc:creator>Kenneth Folk</dc:creator> <dc:date>2009-03-05T18:06:00Z</dc:date> </entry> <entry> <title>The Progress of Insight (part three)</title> <link rel="alternate" href="http://www.dharmaoverground.org/web/guest/testblog/-/blogs/the-progress-of-insight-part-three" /> <author> <name>Kenneth Folk</name> </author> <id>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/web/guest/testblog/-/blogs/the-progress-of-insight-part-three</id> <updated>2009-05-01T13:53:26Z</updated> <published>2009-02-28T14:52:00Z</published> <summary type="html">&lt;p&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;I once had an experience while on retreat in Rangoon of seeing a perfectly formed and brightly colored mandala. It was during my afternoon nap that I awoke into an alternate reality. I somehow knew that my body was still sleeping, and that I was having a vision, but I was completely immersed in this other world. As I looked more closely at the mandala, it became an entire landscape, with buildings and trees and rivers. It was full of detail at every level of scale, the shapes and colors were sharply defined, and it was perfect in every way. If fact, it was much more vivid than my ordinary waking state, with colors that don't exist here on Earth. I found myself flying over this wonderful city, saw a person walking far below, and flew down to investigate. It was my brother, smiling at me! He said, &amp;quot;If you want to fly, you have to help me first.&amp;quot; I was overwhelmed with joy at seeing him, and I took him by the hand and pulled him into the sky.&lt;br /&gt; &lt;br /&gt;Today I'd like to continue the narrative of the ñanas with the 11th ñana, Knowledge of Equanimity. The equanimity ñana is a very happy time for a yogi. Having suffered through the solid physical pain of the third ñana, and having endured the dark night of the tenth ñana, the yogi wakes up one day to find that everything is just fine. Dissolution of mind and body continue, but it is no longer a problem. In fact, nothing is a problem. In the early stages of the eleventh ñana, the yogi can sit happily for hours at a time. If pain comes, no problem. Wandering mind, no problem. Objects present themselves to the mind one after another, obediently posing for inspection. This is where the yogi really gets a feel for what vipassana is all about, as he effortlessly deconstructs each thought and each sensation that appears.&lt;br /&gt; &lt;br /&gt;I mentioned earlier that the third and tenth ñanas are the only places where a yogi gets hung up. I should perhaps include the middle stages of the eleventh on that list, as it is possible for a yogi to get stalled-out here for lack of motivation. When everything feels fine, there is little reason to meditate. Many of us are motivated to meditate by our own suffering. And since there is very little suffering in the eleventh ñana, it is tempting to stop meditating and enjoy the passing parade.&lt;br /&gt; &lt;br /&gt;This lack of motivation works together with the inherently slippery mind of the middle stages of the equanimithy ñana to slow down a yogi's progress. By slippery mind, I mean an inablility to stay focused on one object, and a tendency to drift off into pleasant reverie. Slippery mind is a natural consequence of a mind that is very quick and nimble, and the fact that the equanimity ñana is still part of the dissolution process. In the first stage of dissolution, the fifth ñana (Knowledge of Dissolution, appropriately enough), the focus was on the passing away of gross physical sensations, so it was experienced as blissful. In the middle stages of dissolution, the dukkha ñanas (numbers 6-10), the mind itself was seen to be dissolving, along with the physical world and even one's own sense of identity. The fear and grief induced by the loss of the apparent self were mind-shattering. Now, in the eleventh ñana, Knowlege of Equanimity, the yogi has entered the final stages of dissolution. Even the fear and grief are seen to disappear as soon as they arise. Things are as they are, and life is good. But the yogi will have to relearn the art of concentration.&lt;br /&gt; &lt;br /&gt;One way to understand what is happening here is to hearken back to the phases of &lt;/span&gt;&lt;a target="_self" href="http://dharmaoverground.wetpaint.com/page/Jhana+and+%C3%91ana"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;chicken herding&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;. In order to master the equanimity ñana, the yogi has to completely develop the fifth and final phase of chicken herding. In this phase, the herder has become one with the flock, and is aware of the entire barnyard, all at once. This takes a great deal of momentum, and a great deal of practice... momentum because you can't &amp;quot;do&amp;quot; this as much as you can &amp;quot;allow&amp;quot; it... the later phases of concentration arise naturally when the momentum is strong. And in order to have momentum, you must practice. Frustrated by his slippery mind, however, the yogi may try to hold the objects of meditation too tightly. This will not work with slippery mind. Holding tightly will not allow the later phases of concentration to develop, and will result in yet more frustration. At this point, a concentration practice like counting the breath or gazing lightly at a &lt;/span&gt;&lt;a target="_self" href="http://dharmaoverground.wetpaint.com/page/Jhana+and+%C3%91ana"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;&lt;i&gt;kasina &lt;/i&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;object can be very helpful.&lt;br /&gt; &lt;br /&gt;This is a good place to mention wandering mind and its relationship to concentration. It is the nature of the mind to wander, and even the most advanced meditators have to deal with this phenomenon. Wandering mind cannot be defeated, but it can be managed. I once had a beginning meditation student tell me that she had just finished a sitting in which she thought about her kids, her husband, the shopping, her job, and the fact that she was never going to be good at meditation.&lt;br /&gt; &lt;br /&gt;&amp;quot;Excellent,&amp;quot; I told her. &amp;quot;You just kind of meditate in between all that.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;During any meditation sitting, there are moments when the monkey-mind slows down enough that it's possible to concentrate on an object for a few moments, whether the object is the breath, a &lt;i&gt;kasina &lt;/i&gt;object, or whatever it may be. Those few moments of concentration condition the mind in such a way that there is a little less time before the next window of calm appears in between the passing storms of monkey-mind. This momentum, or snowball effect, where each little bit of calm conditions the next moment of calm, is an important principle in Buddhist meditation. In traditional teachings, the Buddhists list &amp;quot;proximate causes&amp;quot; for various mental factors. For example, the proximate cause for &lt;i&gt;metta &lt;/i&gt;(lovingkindness) is seeing goodness or &amp;quot;loveableness&amp;quot; in another person. The proximate cause for &lt;i&gt;mudita &lt;/i&gt;(sympathetic joy at the good fortune of another) is seeing another's success. And the proximate cause for concentration is none other than... concentration. With this in mind, it is easy to see how important the snowball effect is when you are trying to steady the mind. And from this point of view, there is no reason to feel frustrated when an entire sitting goes by with just a few brief windows of calm. Every moment of concentration makes it more likely that the next moment of concentration will arise.&lt;br /&gt; &lt;br /&gt;Wandering mind, then, becomes ever more manageable with practice, and this is good because the later phases of concentration (chicken herding 4 and 5) will not arise if the mind is not still. This does not mean that thinking stops during deep concentration, but rather that it fades into the background, slows down, and does not pull the mind away from its target. When you are firmly abiding in a jhana and thinking arises, it is felt as subltle physical pain as it begins to pull you out of your pleasant state. With practice, this pain becomes a familiar signal that it's time to turn the mind away from thoughts and toward the object of meditation... or face the consequences. The consequences are simply that you unceremoniously exit the jhana. The skill to exit a jhana according to the schedule you decided upon before entering the jhana as opposed to staying too long or being dumped out prematurely is, as we discussed earlier, the fourth parameter for mastery of a jhana.&lt;br /&gt; &lt;br /&gt;So, how does the yogi get to equanimity in the first place? Why do some people get hung up for years in the preceding ñana? The key to coming to terms with the tenth ñana, Knowledge of Re-observation, is surrender. Once the yogi surrenders to whatever his practice brings, he is free. Having surrendered, it does not matter whether the present experience goes or stays, or whether it is pleasant or unpleasant. It this attitude of surrender, along with time on the cushion, that results in the full development of the strata of mind where fear, misery, and disgust live. Once those mental strata are developed, or once the kundalini energy is able to move freely through those chakras, it is as if a groove has been worn through that territory. You now own that territory and although you move up and down through those same mental strata every day and in each meditation session, they no longer create problems in your meditation.&lt;br /&gt; &lt;br /&gt;It is helpful to think of the Progress of Insight as a vertical movement upward through ever more subtle layers of mind, culminating in the Path moment, in which Nibbana is seen for the first time at that level, forever removing the energy blockages in that section of the mind. Each of the first three Paths then becomes a platform from which to continue transforming the energy on the next leg of the journey. And while the territory to be covered is vast, it is finite. It is for this reason that it is said to be possible to become &amp;quot;fully enlightened;&amp;quot; once you have cleared the energy pathways and developed the chakras throughout the body/mind, there is no more to be done on that score. Recall the traditional words of the arahats upon their attainment of Fourth Path: &amp;quot;Done is what needed to be done, there is no more coming into being, etc.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt; &lt;br /&gt;This consensus that there is a resolution to this particular process of physio-energetic development is important, because it gives hope to people who are tortured daily by the poorly understood but very clearly felt sensation that there &lt;i&gt;is &lt;/i&gt;something to be done with regard to meditative development. These people should be told clearly and often that they can resolve this feeling of unease &lt;i&gt;in this very life&lt;/i&gt;, as U Pandita points out in his book by that title. Where U Pandita has failed us (and understandably so, as the rules of his monastic order prevent him from claiming any attainment) is that does not speak from the authority of personal experience. He uses traditional language, reminding us that &amp;quot;the Buddha said this, the Buddha said that,&amp;quot; blah, blah, blah. We need someone to stand in front of us in the flesh and say, &amp;quot;&lt;i&gt;I&lt;/i&gt; did this, &lt;i&gt;I&lt;/i&gt; did that, and I came to the end of this process. I am no longer tortured by the burning hunger that tortured me for so many years.&amp;quot; It is the need for such honesty and clarity that inspires me to come out of the closet with regard to my attainment in spite of the heat that will inevitably follow as people rightly point out that I am no superman.&lt;br /&gt; &lt;br /&gt;It must also be pointed out again and again that arahatship is not the end of anything except this one particular process of energy development. We can speak here of two kinds of development: the vertical and the horizontal. Vertical development, with regard to jhanas, ñanas and Paths, is finite. Horizontal development is infinite. There is no limit to how much one could explore the mind at every step of the way from before the first ñana before First Path to the sixteenth ñana that results in Fourth Path. So an arahat is by no means done with his development; no human being will ever be done with horizontal development.&lt;br /&gt; &lt;br /&gt;We have so far limited our discussion to the &lt;/span&gt;&lt;a target="_self" href="http://dharmaoverground.wetpaint.com/page/What+is+an+arahat%3F+%28A+letter+to+a+friend%29"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;physio-energetic development&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt; that culminates in Fourth Path/arahatship. There are many other ways for a human being to develop, from the emotional and the psychological to the social and the professional. All of these are valid and important, as most of us do not aspire to be emotionally immature arahats with poor social skills and no job. I hope that, as people become better educated about what &amp;quot;spiritual&amp;quot; development can and cannot do for us, they will stop expecting too much from their gurus. And I hope the gurus will stop imagining themselves to be above the petty concerns of the masses. From what I've seen, many enlightened sages could benefit from a good twelve-step program, or perhaps some kind of therapy.&lt;br /&gt; &lt;br /&gt;This process of becoming an emotional grown-up, while not addressed in traditional Buddhism, has not been neglected by the western Buddhists. Whereas &lt;/span&gt;&lt;a target="_self" href="http://dharmaoverground.wetpaint.com/page/What+is+an+arahat%3F+%28A+letter+to+a+friend%29"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;I criticized Joseph Goldstein&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt; earlier in these letters for unintentionally dead-ending an entire generation of yogis, I would now like to praise him and his Insight Mediation Society contemporaries for training all of us in how to be better human beings. The IMS teachers have used a combination of traditional Buddhist practices and modern western psychology to create a community of truly decent people. I am one of the people they have touched (although I will leave it to others to judge my decency) and I am forever in their debt. Now, if only the IMS teachers would get enlightened...&lt;br /&gt; &lt;br /&gt;I'll continue the narrative of the ñanas in the next installment. Next stop: nibbana.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;</summary> <dc:creator>Kenneth Folk</dc:creator> <dc:date>2009-02-28T14:52:00Z</dc:date> </entry> <entry> <title>The Progress of Insight (part two)</title> <link rel="alternate" href="http://www.dharmaoverground.org/web/guest/testblog/-/blogs/the-progress-of-insight-part-two" /> <author> <name>Kenneth Folk</name> </author> <id>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/web/guest/testblog/-/blogs/the-progress-of-insight-part-two</id> <updated>2009-05-01T13:54:07Z</updated> <published>2009-02-27T14:46:00Z</published> <summary type="html">&lt;p&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;&lt;b&gt;The Dukkha Ñanas&lt;/b&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;There are just two places on the Progress of Insight where yogis get stuck.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;div align="center"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;/\&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div align="center"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt; ___/ \___&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;The sticky places are the 3rd ñana and the 10th, i.e. the ascent to the crest of the wave, and the descent into the trough that follows the crest. The 3rd ñana is significant in that if it is not overcome the yogi will not progress to the Arising and Passing Away of Phenomena, and will therefore not enter the realm of true spirituality. Having never penetrated an object of awareness, the pre- 4th ñana yogi will remain ever an outsider, looking in from behind the glass as others have transformitive experiences that the pre- 4th ñana yogi can only imagine. Nonetheless, the 3rd ñana in itself does not present a great deal of suffering. The pain is mostly physical, mostly experienced on retreat, and does not affect the yogis life outside the retreat setting. Such pre- 4th ñana yogis, of which there are many, often become religious, adopting the ideas and trappings of whatever scene they are in. They may become devoted and much-valued members of their spiritual/religious community.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;The 10th ñana, on the other hand, is a different kind of animal. It has the power to destroy lives. It is the phase referred to in zen as the &amp;quot;rolling up of the mat,&amp;quot; because the yogi has the intuitive sense that meditation is only adding to his misery, and abandons the sitting practice. The 10th ñana is St. John of the Cross' Dark Night of the Soul, a realm of such gut-wrenching despair that the yogi may want to abandon all worldly (and otherworldly) pursuits, pull down the shades, roll up into a ball and die.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;&lt;br /&gt; &lt;br /&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;Although all of the ñanas numbered six through eight are included in the dukkha ñanas, it is the 10th that causes the hardship, as the tenth is an iterative rehash of the Insight Knowledges of Fear, Misery, Disgust, and Desire for Deliverance, along with some nasty surprises all its own.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;Let us look at each of the dukkha ñanas in turn, beginning with the sixth ñana, Knowledge of Fear.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;b&gt;The Sixth Ñana: Knowledge of Fear&lt;/b&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;The name says it all. Following the peak experience of the fourth ñana, the Arising and Passing Away of Phenomena, the yogi's world began to dissolve. But it was not a problem for the yogi, as the deep orgasmic joy of the crest of the wave was smoothly replaced by a cool bliss. Delicious tingling sensations ran down the arms and legs and thoughts disappeared before they could become the objects of obsession. Now all that changes. The dissolution continues in the sixth ñana, Knowledge of Fear, but the yogi experiences it very differently. He is terrified to see his world falling apart.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;About two weeks into my first three-month retreat in Massachusetts in 1991, having already experienced the high of the A &amp;amp; P and the bliss of Knowledge of Dissolution, I was passing the time before lunch by doing walking meditation on the old bowling alley when I was overcome by a wave of abject terror. The hardwood floor of the bowling alley no longer felt solid beneath my stockinged feet. The stark colors of the floor and walls punished my eyes, and the walls themselves seemed to writhe as I watched them. I pushed my hand against the wall beside me, seeking something solid. The wall felt spongy. I fell to my knees on the hardwood floor, oblivious to other yogis who may have been passing by, and pushed my fingertips firmly against the oak, desperate to find a solid place to rest. My fingers seemed to sink into the floor. Tears streamed down my face and tapped onto the wooden floor as I allowed myself to be overcome by an unspeakable dread that I could not understand.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;&lt;br /&gt; &lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;This experience, which lasted about ten minutes, was my first full-blown taste of the sixth insight knowledge, Knowledge of Fear. As intense as it was, momentarily plunging me into what seemed like a bad acid trip from a 1960s anti-drug propaganda film, it was mercifully brief and passed cleanly away by lunchtime.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;&lt;br /&gt; &lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;A traditional description of the sixth ñana describes a mother who has just seen her husband and all but one of her sons executed. As her only surviving son prepares to suffer the same fate as his brothers, the dread that his mother feels is akin to that dread of a yogi who attains to the sixth ñana. Personally, I find this story a bit over the top, but it certainly gets one's attention. And Knowledge of Fear can be very intense, although for some yogis it is not spectacular at all, just unpleasant.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;&lt;b&gt;The Seventh Ñana: Knowledge of Misery&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;The next insight knowledge to arise, the aptly named Knowledge of Misery, is number seven of 16. The body writhes, the skin feels like it is crawling with bugs, and the muscles of the neck and jaw contract unpleasantly, pulling the face into a rictus. It is hard to sit still on the cushion, as the whole body feels unsettled. Unpleasant sensations arise quickly and pass away before the yogi can focus on them, thus taking away one of the strategies that has served the yogi well until now, that of focusing on unpleasant body sensations in order to become concentrated. The experiences I have listed are just some of the many possible ways in which misery can arise. Each individual will have a unique experience. But the seventh ñana will not last long, perhaps not more than a day or two, if that.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;&lt;b&gt;The Eighth Ñana: Knowledge of Disgust&lt;/b&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;The ancient ñana-naming commission once again scores a perfect hit; the eighth insight knowledge, Knowledge of Disgust is just as it sounds. Food is repellant, the thought of sex is nauseating, and everyone smells bad. Again, this ñana is generally short-lived.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;&lt;b&gt;The Ninth Ñana: Knowledge of Desire for Deliverance&lt;/b&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;Do you know what it feels like when you are sobbing, completely at wit's end, overcome by grief and self-pity? The body shakes and rocks, and you feel the release of total surrender to your emotional pain. This is the ninth insight knowledge, Knowledge of Desire for Deliverance.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;&lt;b&gt;The Tenth Ñana: Knowledge of Re-Observation&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;This is where the ancient Buddhist namers of ñanas fell down on the job. The innocuous-sounding Knowledge of Re-Observation, tenth of the sixteen insight knowledges, is a wolf in sheep's clothing. Books have been written about it. It is the stuff legends are made of. This is the Dark Night of the Soul, and the Agony in the Garden. Although some yogis are able to pass through this stage relatively easily, it is common for a yogi's life to be completely disrupted by the tenth ñana.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;When the yogi attains to the crest of the wave in the fourth ñana, he believes that he has arrived at his destination. From here on in, he reasons, life should be a breeze. Even if he has been warned, he does not believe the warnings. He is completely unprepared for what is to come and is blindsided by the fury of the tenth ñana, which consists of the four previous ñanas of fear, misery, disgust, and desire for deliverance repeating themselves in a seemingly endless loop, and worse with each iteration. In addition, the strong concentration of the fourth ñana seems to have disappeared; there is no respite from the unpleasantness and negative mind states that flood the body and mind.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;Actually, the yogi is even more concentrated than before, but he is accessing unstable strata of mind that are not conducive to restful mind states or happy thoughts. The yogi obsesses about his progress, is sure that he is back-sliding, and devises all manner of strategies to &amp;quot;get back&amp;quot; what he has lost. The meditation teacher does his best to reassure the yogi that he is still on track, but to no avail. The best approach at this point is to come clean with the yogi, lay the map on the table, and say &amp;quot;You are here. I know it isn't easy, but it does not last forever. If you continue to practice, you will see through these unpleasant phenomena, just as you have seen through every phenomenon that has presented itself so far. You are here because you are a successful yogi, not because you are a failure. Let the momentum of your practice carry you as you continue to sit and walk and apply the vipassana technique.&amp;quot;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;It is interesting to note that a yogi who is well-versed in jhana may navigate this territory more comfortably than a &amp;quot;dry vipassana&amp;quot; yogi, as jhana is the &amp;quot;juice&amp;quot; that can lubricate his practice.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;The pre-4th ñana yogi who repeatedly fails to penetrate the object and proceed to the Arising and Passing Away of Phenomena is what Sayadaw U Pandita calls the &amp;quot;chronic yogi.&amp;quot; This yogi can go to retreat after retreat, over a period of years, and never understand what vipassana practice is all about. He will, upon hitting the cushion, quickly enter into a pleasant, hypnogogic state, maybe even discover jhana, but go nowhere with regard to the insight knowledges. U Pandita's frequent exhortations to greater effort and meticulous attention to detail in noting the objects of awareness are aimed at this &amp;quot;chronic yogi.&amp;quot;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;The &amp;quot;dark night yogi,&amp;quot; on the other hand, is Bill Hamilton's &amp;quot;chronic achiever.&amp;quot; Having sailed through the all-important fourth ñana and subsequent ñanas five through nine, he hits a wall at the tenth, and can easily spend years there. But even the darkest night ends, and when it does, dawn is sure to follow. The next stop on the Progress of Insight, Knowledge of Equanimity, will make everything that came before it seem worthwhile.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;Continue with, &lt;a href="http://dharmaoverground.org/web/guest/blog/-/blogs/the-progress-of-insight-part-three?doAsUserId=U4FYRpmIICQ%3D&amp;amp;_33_redirect=%2Fweb%2Fguest%2Fblog%3FdoAsUserId%3DU4FYRpmIICQ%253D"&gt;The Progress of Insight (part three)&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;</summary> <dc:creator>Kenneth Folk</dc:creator> <dc:date>2009-02-27T14:46:00Z</dc:date> </entry> </feed> 