I listened to the conversation between Daniel and Vincent Horn. I was put off at first by the emphasis on the huge sums needed for funding the research, until I remembered it was Silicon Valley and that there might be hears to listen to that call... Still, it seemed a little "grandiose" but, well, it's the reality of research, so who am I to say something?
And yes, it explains quite well why suddenly Daniel gets discredited in an important (?) publication. It's hard to believe that this key figure of meditation (and early Buddhism scholarship) was not aware of him until now (not interested maybe?). The temporality of the attack is interesting.
There is the question of whether the awareness of the stage one is in is a distinctive feature of the progress of insight. I would tend to think it is (and I believe it is important to clarify that)....
Daniel's case stands, regardless of if there is this awareness or not. This very awareness is key to the theravada tradition: during retreats, you wake up to the fact that experience unfolds this way, and it unfolds precisely this way because of retreat conditions. In daily life, we can get into any kind of experience (same as the one that unfolds parallel (due) to the development of insight, but often out of order... or better said, we can enter the cycle anywhere), depending on what life has in store for us. These experiences will happen whether we are aware of them or not...
It seems to me that this awareness is what Daniel wants to bring to the medical world. He wants to prove that it manifests through measurable changes in the body/brain. He is utterly convinced that raising the awareness of the POI in the general public will help people make sense of what's happening to them after "crossing the A&P" (under any setting)... And will help doctors to diagnose correctly, it makes sense!
The caveat is that the sole apprehension of the dukkha ñanas might trigger experiences in meditators, or map any change of mood to these stages of insight... That's my guess for why they don't want to allude to it in the Goenka retreats...
Anyway
with metta
smiling stone
