Would like to hear opinions on this guy (https://true-freedom.net/), Dan's specifically. He claims enlightenment in reference to an
emotional model, I.e. he doesn't feel any of them any more. Essentially his claims are identical to Richard the Actualism guy. The difference is
that he is very clear about emotional repression and his main practice advice is to absolutely not do that. He also uses very easily
understandable language and is very transparent about his experience. There is no claim to behavioural or moral perfection as far as I can
tell, he also openly behaves emotionally, the point, according to him, is that he doesn't feel it and it doesn't cause any resistance or
suffering. Richard (and most others that claim such a thing) were always very suspect, especially because they seem very untransparent and are
only public via text, but this dude also has a YouTube channel (https://m.youtube.com/channel/UCfARmiWCsBIyZj4-9Hnp6AQ) and even had recordings of live meeting with him and his students. The video on self love might be a good overview of what he teaches https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=MykgQHmsaCM

Where does he state he has no emotions? If he truly doesn't feel emotions anymore he's a very, very good actor  

Not experiencing suffering from emotions is what normal healthy humans do.
Do you feel suffering from being happy? in love? angry? sad?
The only suffering people feel is from desire to end suffering which caused by them concentrating on desire to end suffering.

If he does not state this then he is not the so called "enlightened Buddha" but yet another fool.

EDIT://
just to be clear
I have not read the site and I do not know what the describer process is and how is the "no suffering" part explained. It might be with different words. Still better to be clear about these things.

This guy started messaging me and a few other people I knew on Quora. He explained to me how he wants to recruit a little army of "arhats" to be his disciples. He has a messiah complex. He is insulting and angry if pressed or questioned, and an quick look at his website will give you some idea of how strong his ego is. I wouldn't be surprised to see that he had a full blown cult at some point.

Well, that's all I needed to hear lol! 

Also, in response to the comment above... yes... emotions cause suffering. Far be it from me to claim that I'm a normal person, but every single emotion I experience causes suffering. Love causes suffering because it is filled with attachment and clinging. Anger causes suffering because it is uncomfortable to feel and leads to decisions that inevitably lead to suffering. Happiness causes suffering to the extent that the happiness is an excitation and also leads to compacency and a general lack of mindful awareness. Sometimes I prefer the term "joy" in the sense of a more pure happiness, so it depends on what you mean. But yes, emotions cause suffering. In truth, it is the unskillful relationship to those emotions that causes suffering, but this, in my opinion, is present in the statement that emotions lead to suffering. An Arahant experiences the same things as a run-of-the-mill person, so an Arahant also experiences emotions, the difference is that the Arahant's relationship to those emotions are spiritually mature (skillfully non-attached). 

That maturity is simply that the emotions don't belong to a "self".  

Which bhumi does true freedom correspond to?

Thank for for responding. could you be more specific on that exchange? so far i found his writing very consistent and didnt get an huge ego vibe from him, just saying what he thinks how enlightened he is. like daniel ingram. would like to hear more, quite a few people seem to think he is the real deal, including people he meet in real life

I had a look through a small section of his Q&A, and it seemed pretty good to me, bar a tendency to overstate the stability of experience, and to mistake his particular path for a universal path. I couldn't see where he said he had no emotions. If anything he seemed to be saying the opposite -  that emotions could not be got rid of, and the key is just to sit with them.

So based on my dipping in to the website, he seems fine to me. Just for a taste, here are his levels of enlightenment.

On the outer level of dreaming, you are a person in the body, looking outside of the body into the physical world and relating to other persons. You are a slave of society.

On a deeper level of dreaming, you are a soul occupying the body and you relate to other souls on an energetic level. You are a slave of your emotional energy.

On a deeper still level of dreaming, you are consciousness/God, a being of pure compassion and unconditional love, you are everything and everyone, the deepest form of love. You are a slave of love.

On the deepest level of dreaming, you are Brahman, the totality of all existence, infinity beyond manifest, you are truly nothing, eternity, the deepest form of peace. You are a slave of death.

When all dreaming ceases, you are just a hairless monkey walking on a ball of rock, eating, pooping, living and not imagining things that are not there. You are now free.

I would suggest that criticism be linked to direct quotes from his website.  So far, I didn't find anything to disagree with.

Malcolm

Watch his videos. His ego bursts forth from the screen, into your lap, and bites you in the ass. The smarmy smile is telling, as is the way he talks down to the camera. The instant I started watching I got an icky feeling.

That's my takeaway. YMMV.

Just to be clear, he may be quite realized. Both can be true.

Hello!

This is me. My name is Artem, Artem Boytsov. Thank you very much for being interested in my teachings. I think you have made an excellent summary of them! I realize that you have made this thread to get others' opinions of me, not to contact me - if you wished to contact me, you could have done it privately. Nevertheless, this is a public thread, probably indexed by Google, discussing me, so I think I am well within reason to participate.

I was upset when I read your description of me as "X from the Internet" - I found it diminutive. I am a living, breathing person, and I live in San Francsico Bay Area. I haven't been doing any Satsangs recently, due to the COVID-19 situations, but I used to host them sporadically, and I have also expressed my position on the means of communication multiple times, very clearly and very strongly, which is - the closer, the more intimate the communication is with a teacher (whoever a teacher is), the better. So face-to-face communication (or simple presence if one is so inclined) is better than video, video is much better than a phone call, and voice is inifintely better than text. Text is basically junk. Everyone is speaking to themselves in their heads over text, there's no tone of voice, no emphasis - everything is lost. So, my prefererence is always live communication, live presence, not the Internet, and I strongly believe that any good teacher must have this preference. Heck, I believe that every human should have this preference, it does not only apply to teaching or the matters of spirituality, it's just common sense and one of the most basic observations I made over a decade ago, long before this whole enlightenment thingy.

But for better or worse, the Internet is by far the primary mean of communication now. It has long overshadowed books, phone calls, meetings and public gatherings. It may be sad, but it is true. My following is actually very small, I am a pretty much a completely unknown figure in the spiritual community, so if I want to make a bigger difference, I have to use every mean of communication available to me to make myself known and help a greater number of people. Today it's the Internet, hence I am active on the Internet. The last thing I wanted to do is walk up to strangers on the streets and bother them with my "attainment" - that's just silly (believe it or not, some people do that). I also tried visiting other Satsangs and gatherings, but I am very ordinary - I do not have an eternal smile on my face, I do not radiate unconditional love, I am very ordinary looking, and I behave normally, maybe just a bit quieter than most people and I don't fidget much, but there are lots of people who would fit this description. I suspect that on spiritual gatherings I just look bored, so I cannot attract any followers this way. No one comes up to me and says "wow, you are so serene! can you help me attain enlightenment?", it's not something that happens, it's a spiritual fantasy. People mostly go by reputation (and this thread is a good example of that), so if I keep it to myself no one will ever know that I can help someone. This leaves me the Internet if I want to try and make a difference. And it actually works! 

A few decades ago it was books. People would write books. Eckhart wrote books - and he, from what I remember, had quite a difficult time trying to publish his very first book. Adya wrote books - his books are especially wonderful, he is a great teacher. One of the very few well-known living teachers that I would wholeheartedly recommend. So, if you make the quick substitution - "Fully enlightened Buddha from the book?" - you could see how this way of describing me is diminutive, and why it has upset me.

Why am I "from the Internet"? Why didn't you use my name? I don't live in the Internet, see, I live in my house. You are welcome to visit one day!

I am, indeed, a very, very good actor! But then again, so are you! You just like to think you are genuine, hence you see fakery in others.

What? Lol. This is ridiculous. I would never say such a thing - it's just silly. If I ever did, it was only to spite you. Based on what you wrote, you could use being insulted - you love insulting others!

But I don't think so. I do not remember your name, I couldn't find your profile on Quora, and I don't remember writing to anyone about "wanting to recruit an army of arhats". I think you are either lying (or simply mis-interpreting what I wrote to you to fit your narrative of me), or, possibly, much more innocently, confusing me with someone else.

But since you are publicly accusing me of having a "messiah complex" (Jesus lord lol) - provide some screenshots, please. 

P.S. You also don't seem to know what a cult is. It's not possible to have an Internet cult, it is not a possibility.

You are right, my friend, emotions are suffering, all feelings are pain. But I would also never say it's possible to get rid of suffering - the only way is to surrender to suffering. Which is exactly why first one dis-identifies with his suffering (as you say, skillfully non-attached), in order to be able to experience one's suffering more fully, before suffering is finally extinguished, as it only does through experience. So, ultimately, "these emotions do not belong to me" is an illusion, but often times a necessery one - so traumatized we all are in the separated state.

They do, they do, don't worry - all your emotions are yours. Please stop living in denial of yourself.

Thank you, my friend, thank you very much!

I'm not sure what you mean by "a tendency to overstate the stability of experience" - my experience seems pretty stable to me, although, of course I cannot predict its stability - I do not know what I will feel tomorrow and I can't know, I can only describe my past experience, not future one. But my past experience looks quite stable, generally.

I also don't agree with you on "mistaking my path for a universal path". I agree that everyone's path is unique, there's no argument here. But I also believe that there's a point beyond which all paths merge into a universal path, which is the same for everyone. If that wasn't true, no teaching would be possible at all and teachers wouldn't be able to recognize each other in their role. After all, your very own "the key is to just sit with them" is quite a direct recognition of the universality of the path, isn't it?

But that's great, this is wonderful that my ego bursts at you from the screen, into your lap and bites you in the ass! This icky feeling you get from me is wonderful! I think you should watch more of my videos. I don't get an icky feeling from watching anyone else's videos, back when I used to, it was my own ego acting out. 

Maybe you have forgotten that there's only one ego in your existence, my friend, and it doesn't really matter if you think it's mine or yours. So it's working! Allow for your own disgust of me.

With each reply you're making Sterling's comment about you seem quite plausible.

Yes, most definitely, I have the biggest ego! It's huge. I am basically an egomaniac. Very icky.

Dear Artem - to engage with your questions ...

Well, text has limitations. It is hard to put the complexity of the dharma into your text, or into my text, so a reader may not see the subtlety that is there. For example, your stages that I quoted - I think they are really good and I understand what you mean and how they arise. But somebody else might have a completely different set of stages - like the ten ox herding pictures.  Are they different - yes!  Are they the same - yes!  So it is hard to communicate this subtlety in language. So I don't think we disagree - it's just that text is inevitably a bit didactic, as are any comments on that text, such as my own. Perhaps my phrasing was unskilful, and should have been "presenting a particular version of the path as if it were the only path" - but this is of course a natural thing to do in a Q&A, as opposed to a lengthy book!

On stability of experience - again, it is hard to put into linear conceptual thought. The wave can take many forms, and it swirls and eddies, but it is still a wave. So again, when we are limited by text, we say "the wave looks like this" - and it does, but it also swirls and eddies and curls around the pier, and drains back and crashes forward. But it is still a wave. Another metaphor would be to think about travelling through different frames of references, or different realms. Or that we can relate to our experience in different ways, depending on our current environment, our recent history, the extent to which we are absorbed in different sense conciousnesses, or the bits of the resiude remaining that are activated at that time - so experience oscillates.  A very basic example would be sitting in the body versus  sitting in the visual sphere versus contracting into a purpose-driven dialogue with family, versus searching out the next meal, or the next dollar. But none of that changes the core realisation of centreless not-self.  Perhaps our experiences are different, but I sit in this oscillation and enjoy the variety of human experiences that come and go, including the experience of dukkha, to which I do not cling.

Metta to you Artem

Malcolm

Thank you, Malcolm, for your response!

By the way, given that you mentioned the 10 bulls of Zen, I speak about how other people/traditions spoke about the stages of enlightenment (based on my limited exposure) in this answer: https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-ego/answer/Artem-Boytsov

I can see how the assertive style is offputting to some, but I don't mind (this is why I am on a forum run by the Arthat Daniel lol). Further it makes it easier to assess his strenghts and weaknesses...


I spend 15 mins reading some of his stuff on the website, and I think he has some level of spiritual attainment. Deeper than most new age gurus tbh based on some of the stuff he described.


That said, it is obvious he doesn't really understand based some stuff like Buddhist emptiness / shunyata and doesn't have experential realizaion in this regard.


But still speaks about it with equal certainty as stuff the stuff he does understand in depth (which seems to be Nisirgatdatta type teaching of brahman, absolute etc based on my readings).



He also seems unfairly dismissive of bio-energetic stuff, yoga etc, which I am not sure he understands either.


So overall smugness and arrogance a bit high relative to level of attainment, and more humility is warranted. But if people resonate with him and get value then not much different from a more 'humble' presenting spiritual guru (assuming no cultish elements etc) 

I see you guys really like reading books and analyzing language here. I had what you call "experiential realization of emptiness/Shunyata" long time ago and found it lacking and delusional. If you would like to further discuss it with me, I invite you to a video call. We can post our discussion for the people present here so that they can judge our levels of understanding and humility, of which you are so concerned. 

But thank you very much for taking 15 minutes out of your life to immediately and extremely accurately assess my level of spiritual "attainment" based on some stuff I wrote almost two years ago. This is an incredibly swift and undoubtfully accurate assessment, which isn't arrogant and smug on your part at all, no. On the contrary, you are very humble. Only a true master like yourself can make such assessments and remain as humble as you. Heck, even your profile pic hints at how spiritually advanced you are! I'm surprised you haven't changed your name yet.

I have been told recently that if I don't pronounce the words "dependent origination" and "emptiness of phenomena" then I don't understand Buddhist Shunyata. Yes, I know. I am sorry. Guilty as charged. I will fix my language to your liking. Oops, it's my arrogance speaking again. Fuck, I have so much of it, I don't even know what to do with it! I usually spend it on people like you who really think that they can know everyone's "level of attainment" in 15 minutes. 

This delusion, by the way, also left me long time ago.

I will wait for your response regarding a video call. I want to see your humility in action. I'm sure everyone does, not just me. Maybe you could also explain to me why your emptiness is superior to mine. Will be fun! I will listen attentively and won't interrupt, I promise. You'll be pleased with me. I will even take you as my teacher - you seem to have some advice for me. I am completely open to everyone's advice!

Lol @ criticisim of my name and avatar.


OP asked for an opinion, and I gave my honest opinon, in my capacity as a poster on this forum, with the qualifier that I had only spent 15 minutes reading your stuff.


Would be nice if you added similar qualifier regarding your own understanding of different traditions.


So when you proffer opinions, esp. dismissive ones, about yoga, buddhism etc. in your role as a 'fully enlightened' spiritual teacher, would be nice to know what backgroud you have in those traditions.



For eg:


What are you basing this on ?


I don't doubt that you had some sort of realization that you have labelled 'shunyata' and found it to be dissatisfying.


But why do you assume its the same one that I am talking about or is being talked about in the Buddhist texts ?


In your writing you keep pontificating on stuff in this manner, even stuff that has little relation to 'englightenment'. Always with absolute certainty in your own understanding and no qualifiers or caveats. 


Reminds me of old school know-it-all type cultish gurus. 

I have offered you to speak to me on the video. You have completely ignored it, you have dismissed my offer. I find you, your behavior and your tone to be deeply disrespectful, arrogant, smug, beeming with superiority and the desire to show off your imagined superior spiritual "understanding", as well as try to humiliate me by comparing me to some "undesirable cultish types".

If you think dismissing opinions is a greater sin than dismissing a living, breathing person, you, my friend, are in need of some serious help.

I am going to repeat my offer once again - if you are willing to engage with me here, you should be willing to engage with me in reality. Life is not your keyboard, I am not a wall of text, I am a living individual. Treat me as one.

So I am repeating my offer once again, and if you ignore it once again, I have nothing more to tell you - life will do it for me.

P.S. Everything you wrote to me in response is inaccurate, arrogant and immature junk. I dismiss it all, all of it. All of you stupid commentary about me I dismiss. But I am not dismissing you - I would like to get to know you better, to speak to you and to hear your voice. I'm sure there's more to you than typing half-baked opinions about other people's "levels of attainment" on the Internet.

my goodness, "life will do it for me", really?  you're tipping your cards.

So this was your original offer. This didn't seem like a genuine offer at connecting as individuals. More like a spiritual dick measuring contest, which i have no interest in.


But maybe we got off on the wrong foot, so I will apologize for hostility on my part. And lets start from ground 0.


And let me first say some positive stuff in recognition that I was too harsh

1. As I mentiioned I do  think you have a high level of attainment based on some minor details you mentioned 
2. Kudos to you for attempting to help people along their journey, I respect anyone that does that 
3. You are grounded in reality rather than in woo, which is good



I would be interested in a video chat with you about your experience of reality.  Not in a hostile way, not as superior or inferior. But as a fellow human.


I can talk about my own experiences, and my current level understanding which is subject to change (including wrt. to emptiness and stuff). But my views would be my own, I can't speak on behalf of any tradition.


Also particularly interested in is tallking about things at the level of sensory reality rather and then working to backward to figure out what we mean by certain vocabulary. 


Let me know if that sounds interesting to you. Maybe we can set something up.

Beautiful! I wholeheartedly accept your offer to start at ground zero, and I accept your apology! Please accept my apology as well - if my response was too harsh, I apologize.

I completely agree to your terms - they sound very reasonable. I agree that the vocabulary is secondary, it always is.

I am very interested - let's do it! We can also record our converation and put it here if other folks are interested, but this is entirely optional - and totally up to you. I do not insist. 

I'm not sure how to communicate private contact information on this forum, it feels rather archaic to me, I am too spoiled by Reddit, Quora and the like, so I propose you shoot me a quick email at artem@true-freedom.net, I will respond with my phone number and we'll set something up!

Looking forward to it.

Cool, I sent you an email. 


There are pros and cons to video. Probably tends to decrease openness, but can probably help a few other people that watch it.


So I will leave that call to you.

Where can we buy tickets?

Hello, Chris!

Dhru and I had a wonderful conversation over video, but we have decided not to publish it.

So, I'm afraid there are no tickets available - I'm sorry about that! But if you wish, I would be more than happy to speak to you as well.

I'll pass, Artem, but thanks for the invitation.

You are welcome, my friend! Best of luck to you on your spiritual path!

Every time I read a thread like this, I am left wondering what the hell I hope to accomplish with this practice - or what is even possible to accomplish.

Because.... ?

Because we like being distracted by other people and we makes things into a bigger deal than they need to be and we don't focus on simply practicing consistently and without heroics in order to make incremental progress in our own lives? 

The funny thing is - not much. You basically cannot accomplish anything except the peace of mind. You can't "change your reality" as some people in spiritual circles like to say - you can only accept it, which is where the peace of mind comes from. "Changing your reality" amounts to the same thing that everyone else already has in their disposal - if you want a job, go get one; if you want friends, go make some.

But also, of course, compared to a state when you're fully immersed in dreaming, the peace of mind is percevied to be so profound, so surreal that it is no wonder it is often times described as a different reality altogether, or a supreme attainment or accomplishment. When I was living in the mind, the mind was my reality, I paid very little attention to anything else. But it's still not an accomplishment - it's the opposite. It comes from not needing to accomplish anything else to be content with oneself anymore.

So, authentic spiritual practice doesn't really help you accomplish anything - it helps you disillusion yourself from the notion that something must be accomplished in the first place. That something must change before you can be happy, peaceful, content, that there's something missing. Meditation can be described as a simple practice of doing nothing while paying keen attention to why doing nothing is so damn unsatisfactory hehehe. 

That's pretty much all you can ever "accomplish". The rest are just spiritual experiences, states of consciousness, which come and go, certain shifts of perception that people attribute way too much value to, but those are always temporary, even though many people get stuck in those experiences and they can last years and years. But enlightenment is neither an experience nor is it a state of consciousness. It is simply peace.

And even this peace is not accomplished, it is not earned. It is what happens naturally, spontenously after being exposed to all your internal unrest, all your internal resistence, yearning, discontent, fear, anxiety, hatred, anger, drama, trauma etc. and having been exhausted of it all. That's what practice does. What's left is peace.

When you don't have to accomplish anything anymore, you are free to just live. There is no greater freedom than that. We all have it. We're just struggling with the unrest, with our desires to accomplish something to make our lives better, to make ourselves better, instead of looking inside of ourselves and realizing that we are already perfect, and our lives are perfect simply because they are the only lives we are given and there will never be anything else. And we are always looking for something else.