NOTE FOR THOSE WHO ARE NOT HIGHLY EXPERIENCED DHARMA PRACTITIONERS: This thread is for those who are already aware of the countless overwhelmingly positive aspects to Awakening and won't be discouraged by reading personal opinions about some of the "downsides", which are actually only downsides from a limited perspective. It should in no way serve to discourage dharma practitioners or put off those who may have some interest in Buddhism, for the positive aspects of Awakening completely overwhelm and negate any "negative" aspects. Its purpose is merely to bring to light some aspects that are largely unspoken of, for the sake of better preparing and educating those who are already committed practitioners.





As a community of practitioners that prides itself on transparency and openness about the shadow sides of practice and ideals around Awakening, I sometimes feel more could be said on the topic of the fine print of Awakening, i.e. those less-than-appealing (by some measure that you yourself may no longer agree with) direct consequences of Awakening (in whatever definition you choose). I intend this to be distinct from discussion around perceived negative aspects of the so-called "dark night", or negative consequences arising from the pursuit of Awakening (e.g. alienation, loss of status, etc.). I'll start:

 - Loss of ambition: Perhaps inevitably, as one increasingly feels an unconditional peace of mind, satisfaction and freedom from suffering, and at the same time there is a reduction in the power of the Inner Critic, one lets go of the 8 Worldly Concerns, e.g. the need to constantly push oneself to compete with others for wealth, power and status.
- Loss of emotional intensity: Perhaps this is more debatable, and I'm interested in hearing alternative views on this, but it seems, to some degree at least, that with practice one's mind gradually becomes more clinical and emotionally unperturbed. In my experience this has been a consistent trend, though to some extent this is probably a natural consequence of aging.
- Loss of "savoring": It took me a long time to come to terms with this, but I believe there are certain forms of pleasure that are lost with Awakening. On balance, it should be emphasized, this is not a problem, but nevertheless it's worth putting in the fine print. For example, the pleasure that arises when a great craving for something is "satisfied" temporarily. As one's cravings are reduced with practice, so this form of pleasure occurs less intensely. There is also a kind of savoring and luxuriating in a perceived pleasurable experience which I've noticed is lost as one increasingly stays with bare sensate experience. The exact phenomenology of this I'll leave to other practitioners to delineate. Even the bliss of jhana (to the limited extent I've experienced this) seem to be experienced differently after a certain degree of Awakening; there is an increasingly clinical, non-reactive quality that short-circuits any fabrication of great dualistic pleasure.
- Loss of contrivance: As one settles into spontaneous effortless action, there can be a rawness and simplicity in one's appearance which may actually be off-putting to people who don't value authenticity so highly. This may come across as harsh, unprepared, and lacking the superficial charm and finesse that some are beguiled by. One may find that one's capacity to ascend the hierarchies of samsara is curtailed by Awakening.
- Loss of self-care (to some degree): Although with practice one grows increasingly capable in many ways, and may be perfectly capable of the discipline required to maintain reasonable standards as regards diet, exercise, personal hygiene, etc., there is a degree of personal preening and hording of resources that is unlikely to withstand (at least higher levels of) Awakening. This is getting into debatable territory around the ethical conduct of Awakened individuals, but essentially my point is there is a level of concern (if not obsession) around personal appearance, health, and financial security, that one lets go of over time. There can also be times where one's capacity to tolerate pain and unpleasant conditions can start to feel a little weird or maladaptive, as in one increasingly feels transcendent of the ordinary drives and compulsions that actually help people to survive and reproduce.

I think there is a kind of gray area between the effects of a lot of certain types of meditation and the effects of awakening. Grey because I've seen it said in various places that when you reach the final stage of awakening you are practicing meditation/mindfulness all the time.

But I think some of these "negative" effects are really due to the type of meditation practiced. I chose my own mode of practice to minimize the effects of meditation. It turned out that it is what Ajhan Cha taught:

https://inquiringmind.com/article/2701_w_kornfield-enlightenments/

What I would put in the fine print would depend somewhat on the definition of awakening you are considering, but in general I would say:

There are different definitions of awakening and ways to awaken:
Shinzen Young Enlightenment Interview: https://www.lionsroar.com/on-enlightenment-an-interview-with-shinzen-young/
Jack Kornfield, "Enlightenments": https://inquiringmind.com/article/2701_w_kornfield-enlightenments/

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There are stages of awakening, some people report the early stagesdon't really amount to much.

Full awakening doesn't really end suffering 100% while you are alive. It is called nirvana with remainder.

Awakening doesn't necessarily make you a nice person.

You shouldn't trust an enlightened teacher just because they are said to be enlightened.

Awakening doesn't instantly undo the wiring of your brain that occured over a lifetime. Patterns of speech, ways of communicating, habits of thought, mannersisms, manners, and other facets of personality, don't necessarily change just becuase a person is awakened. (What changes more is that you stop identifying with that personality, you are less attached to it, you don't need to defend it from insult and injury. You still have emotions but you don't overreact to them, for the most part they arise and fade quickly without causing as much trouble.) This might cause someone who is awakened to seem to be acting in ways that might make you doubt they are awakened. The problem is not them or the definition of awakening, it is unrealistic expectations / misunderstanding about what awakening is. But this type of confusing situation is one reason I think awakening should be measured/defined by what happens in daily life over the long term rather than what happens in meditation.

https://youtu.be/B8CO877erBY?si=QK0kmmBilsZrbc6o

Interesting video from someone who tried really hard to get awakened using Daniel Ingram style noting. At 20:40 he says that all of his teachers told him to keep on going even though he was experiencing major issues.

​​​​​​​Beware 

That is an interesting example of the difficulties (putting in mildly) people can have on the path to Awakening. I have had many similar, though fortunately less disruptive, experiences. It's wonderful that Cheetah House is available to provide help in these cases. Perhaps this thread will morph into a discussion on such pre-Awakening difficulties, though my original intention was for it to focus specifically on the rarely-discussed ramifications of Awakening that one could interpret as negative in some sense.

Hello BB

Thanks for writing this very interesting post. I would like to comment purely in order to share my own experience. I would be writing about the dark night but its as a build up to addressing the topics that you have written about

Experience with awakening practices and their results and ongoing experience of awakening are ... well experiential. We poke our heads out of experience in order to talk to each other and in doing so we convert experience into conceptual models and descriptive language. In terms of conceptual models and descriptive language and its 'fit' with out experience we are always going to be unique in how we use concepts and language. Its possible that any differences I have in what I write here are superficial and semantic as compared to what you have written. Its also possible that we have differing experiential understanding.

Also my style of writing is direct, its as if I am giving instructions to someone. This is merely a matter of style and convenience. What I am actually doing is sharing my own personal knowledge and wisdom and while doing so I am not using guarded language.

What I discovered about Dukkha

1. We have two distinct mechanisms of moving our butts - defilements/fetters - they feel like compulsions. Accumulated wisdom - it feels like sane rational choice
2. Dukkha is the friction between wisdom and compulsions
3. When compulsions are active and they express themselves there is no dukkha
4. When wisdom is active and it expresses itself there is no dukkha
5. When compulsions and wisdom are both active and wisdom sees the compulsions there is dukkha
6. Dukkha is expressed as fear misery disgust and desperation - or some combinations thereof

What this means if we meditate then wisdom increases, it keeps seeing compulsions and therefore dukkha increases. So the meditation project requires us to increase wisdom and experience the dukkha and then do something about the compulsions. The increasing of wisdom or the sensitivity of wisdom is a 'Yang' thing. You place attention here, you place it there, you increase sensory clarity, ... so on and so forth. The removing of compulsions  is a 'Yin' thing, its all about softening into, changing relationships, releasing the mind from the various grips it takes, creating stillness.

We all do not have equal talent at both Yang and Yin. Yang involves 'doing' and we are very good at doing and thus we keep increasing wisdom, keep increasing sensitivity and keep facing more and more dukkha. Our Yin skills take time to catch up, either intuition comes into play and we start working on those skills ourselves or we get excellent instructions from our teachers and mentors, or we get rogered by dukkha so hard that we have no choice to but to develop the Yin. But the upshot is that there is always a time lag in the development of the Yin skills. Thus we go through a longish period (/periods) of Fear misery disgust desperation brought on due to the very act of meditating.

The process of developing the yang skills, the experiencing of the dukkha in increased strength, the subsequent development of the yin skills, the final freedom from the compulsions and the subsequent experience of the absence of dukkha ...... this entire arc helps us develop a certain wisdom about the mind that is adjacent to the core objective of dukkha nirodha.

We may discover the following things

1. Every thing we do in life has the potential to be driven by wisdom, defilements, both ... together! It is mostly both together

2. To hold the ambition to be the premier of a country or the CEO of a company can be driven by wisdom, defilments, both ... together! It is mostly together

3. To hold the ambition to be a beach bum and do nothing, nothing at all can be driven by wisdom, defilements, both.... together! It is mostly together

4. So we may discover the complete orthogonality of the dukkha nirodha project as compared to our choice of profession, vocation, our personality, our degree of ambition or lack thereof

5. The dukkha nirodha project at its core involves increasing wisdom - seeing increased dukkha - figuring out that it is connected to compulsions/defilements - eliminating those defilements by yin type activity - lack of participation, withdrawal of affective investment, depriving the compulsions of 'nutriment'. This elimination of defilements component teaches us about the connection between kamma and sankharas. We take intentional actions - we install programs / conditioning. We take intentional actions of a different kind and stop taking intentional actions of the first kind and the existing conditioning is eliminated - the defilements are eliminated. This is kusalata or skillfulness. We learn to bend and fold the blades of the kusa grass so that it doesnt cut our fingers. And in the process we realize that it has nothing to do with how we present to the world. We may continue to be a contriving rascal, or we may stop doing it, or we may let the exigency of the moment decide which face to show to 'the world'. What we may not do in the process of awakening is promote the defilements. Once we awaken, we are free of defilements completely! Be contriving, dont be contriving it doesnt matter. We just operate from a sensory environment that is free of the defilements, doing whatever we need to do in order to live and let live.

6. Regarding the ethical conduct of awakened individuals there is one single commonality - there is no greed hatred or delusion - social conduct is completely orthogonal to this. We continue to operate in a way that is in conformity with our own personal inner ethical compass. Grooming ourselves, keeping ourselves neat and clean and tidy is a personal choice, there is no uniform awakened behaviour, there are only awakened individuals and they do whatever the fuck they want to do . Their only commonality is an absence of the three poisons, a victory over the ten fetters, freedom from fear misery disgust desperation and any combination thereof. The raft has been long abandoned, it is remembered only to help other people. Want to comb your hair ... do it! dont want to comb your hair .... dont be an ass! comb your hair!

Regarding emotions, I had written about this on a discord forum I own and manage. I was talking to Linda Poly Ester at the time. I am copy pasting that here because I think its quite well written, if I may say so myself

Regarding emotions:

• When I did not practice, I did not have a view of my mind, its cognitive activities and aggregate mental states. Thus I very clearly had emotions, the same way everybody else has them - I am assuming this of course, because I don't live inside any body else's head. As I began meditating I developed an understanding of the sensorium - the sensory capability and its environment. The act of meditating methodically and consistently just simply developed a smartness about patterns of activities. Specific to emotions: I saw emotions to be cognitive activity triggered by that which I perceived. This could be the visual or auditory perception of a neighbour with whom I have a property dispute, or my children. Or this could be the perception of a memory randomly/habitually showing up. This 'triggered' cognitive activity was discrete in its nature. It had elements - most of which I term as meaning based thinking (as opposed to visual/verbally presented thinking) This cognitive activity and its elements, being discrete, occupied a period of time objective time by being constantly refreshed - for that period of time. Each element of this cognitive activity was layered with one of three affective tones - vedana - positive/negative/neutral The perception was unintended, the discrete cognitive elements were unintended, their refreshing was unintended, The period of time that this cognitive activity occupied was unintended. Not only was it unintended, it was habitual, compulsory, it had a 'push' to it. This knowledge and understanding emerged from meditation, immersion in the sensorium, scrutiny of how it works, pattern recognition.
  
  Over a period of time meditation gave me a bird's eye view of the push/compelled nature of this cognitive activity, as well as why it happens. The sense that emerged was that this was a process of 'appropriation' of the sensorium. A system that can flow smoothly without friction, minding its own business was constantly interrupted and over flowed with this cognitive activity heavily layered with affect. This sensory overflow had a base inner drive - the drive to appropriate/own/claim ownership of. And invariably every time this chaotic, compulsive overflow happened it was either accompanied by or followed by misery in one of its flavours.
  
  Path moments gave me freedom from the compulsion / the push /the drive to appropriate. Do I experience emotions today - most certainly not in the same way as I used to experience them. Do I love my children? Most certainly not in the same way as before. Love, grieving, hatred, lust, repulsion .... everything that we call emotions are compulsive activity in which we have no choice. No wisdom, just being constantly pushed into one particular position of appropriation of the sensorium. I look at my children and they give me joy. I think of a calamity befalling them - it has negative vedana. By the way .... I dont think of calamity befalling them. I see such things as masochistic tendencies wiped out by path moments ... but for the sake of the conversation ...

Just my two cents about greed/hatred/delusion.

these terms are unfortunate but this isn't specific to the dharma. All specialized fields use common words in a technical sense and this results in a lot of misunderstandings. 

let me give an example that has huge consequences for science: scientists use the word "theory" in a technical way that is for all intents and purposes the opposite of the popular usage. Hence, when scientists say that evolution is a theory they mean by that that it is solid as rock. But when the common people hear that they think "well evolution is just a theory, no big deal. I can also have my theory and both theories will be on exact footing "
Naaah !

​​​​​​​to come back to greed/hatred/delusionm these have a technical meaning that is totally different from they day-to-day usage. At least that's my understanding. 

One issue is that awakening is unshareable. When you see someone suffering, you cannot just explain the way out. On a related note, if someone is gripped by fear, or anger, or passion for some particular view, you will not be caught up in it, in a way that you might once have been, which may be disappointing for the person in the grip of it, who wants validation and companionship. 

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Yeah I would second something along these lines. I'm not sure if I personally qualify as an advanced dhamma practitioner, but my two cents is that meditation can be fairly isolating, just because it runs so deep and affects all aspects of life, but it's so foreign to most people, so it ends up being tricky to connect with friends, family, and loved ones over.

I'm curious about this one. I think I agree with Adi Vader: as you become less deluded, you act less out of delusion. Meditation made me realize that there's no sensation that can actually improve experience. So sensation-seeking behaviors have decreased. Meditation made me realize that my actions are utterly out of my control. So I no longer try to manage myself. Meditation made me realize that everyone has their own natural, blameless course. So I'm not so quick to manipulate or bemoan others. Meditation made me realize the bliss of death. So I no longer try to subvert it. Meditation made me realize the irreality of the fixed self. So I no longer despair when others change. And yet, in the big picture, my life looks quite the same. I do my fair share of capitalistic competing. But now it's rooted in a simple, content intent to help.

​​​​​​​Even as your motivations change, your behaviors can remain.

Thanks for the thought-provoking responses!

Apologies, I thought the OP was sufficiently couched in qualificatory language, but apparently it wasn't. I didn't mean for it to come across as listing hard-and-fast rules about what will definitely happen post-Awakening.

It's conceivable one may continue to act in much the same ways as before, for example paying careful attention to one's appearance, acting in a contrived manner in order to sell something, etc. This might be partially due to habit or circumstance (e.g. one has the deeply ingrained habit of continuing to go to work). However I'm inclined to believe, just based on my own experience, that over time Awakening inevitably affects one's motivations. So for example, regarding self-care, insofar as that is motivated by delusion (e.g. vanity or a craving for status), it's unlikely to withstand Awakening, at least in the long term. It may be that one is primarily driven by a pure motivation to begin with, such as the compassionate desire to provide for one's family, and so Awakening doesn't have much effect on that level.

I suppose there is no limit to how contrived the behavior of an Awakened person might be. If they are sufficiently motivated, I'm sure they can lie and deceive as well as anyone. Again it's a question of motivation. The motivation for doing such things is less likely to be present, because of the contributing factors of increasing unconditional peace of mind, etc. Perhaps if one was in exceptionally dire circumstances, where survival required constant deceit, then one might engage in that. But generally speaking, it seems dharma practice would result in a relaxation into increasingly authentic spontaneous behavior.

I basically agree with this but I have two comments: 1) these are not "negative" aspects if they are changes that align with what the individual now values; 2) people who publicly identify as enlightened actually often dress up, shave their heads <g>, and so on; (OK, three comments) 3) many of the things you mention are part of ordinary maturity (think comfortable shoes and not giving a damn) :-)

 

1) I agree they are not truly negative (hence why I put "negative" in quotation marks, and in parentheses said "by some measure that you yourself may no longer agree with"), however, they can have serious life-changing consequences, so I feel it's worth being open about them.
2) Right, but this is typically for religious purposes. To clarify the point I was originally trying to make, there is a degree of concern about personal appearance, stemming from the delusion uprooted by dharma practice, which is unlikely to withstand Awakening.
3) That's an interesting point. The process of maturing with age is arguably a kind of natural dharma practice, insofar as it's about letting go of sources of stress and getting more in touch with reality.

That’s really interesting! I totally agree. Simply by living, one can debunk a lot of the false promises and mirages out there. Our assumptions about what will satisfy us, what we can control, what we need to avoid or fix...

There might be something said toward the idea of pragmatically adopting certain values to minimize suffering. Like at a certain point it might be easier to actualize certain things by dressing the part society expects you to to actualize those values.

It's like reading or writing. You get better at reading by reading a lot. You get better at writing by writing a lot. At a certain point, reading becomes natural and you don't think of it as a lesson or practice or work. The same is true of writing. At some point letting go of attachments and aversions becomes second nature, and after that you get better and better at it just by living every day and naturally letting go when dukkha arises in the mind. Suffering gets less and less and it doesn't seem like you are working at it, it is something that happens naturally. But like reading or writing, at first you do have to put in the work to learn how to let go (being relaxed, staying mindful, aware of the activity of the mind, without suppressing anything, and without getting carried away by thoughts and emotions), to get to the point where it is second nature.