I tried to post this as a response to my own comment on a previous thread regarding Delson.

My post kept disappearing. So I started a new one.

This is a reaction video from the Jedi Bhikkhu - the dude with the weird aesthetic and the multi hour video posted in the past attacking TWIM and Delson. It is in reaction to Don Konforty's video recording interviewing Delson. An original video that Don Konforty did not publish.

Posting it here in case it is of interest to others.

https://youtu.be/j02Lliq7Vss?si=FwYPAo7F8EJz5z0s

I believe this guy used to have some videos on Daniel but they were removed. I binged watched a bunch of his content one day, not sure why, he seems weird. I find him kind of unsettling but I had a feeling he would be covering this. Will check it out !!

​​​​​​​Your thoughts Adi? 

In the comments:

Hello, Being Untangled! Nice to meet you. My name is Dor and I recorded the video that you’ve posted here. This isn’t the video Delson and I had intended to publish; Delson didn’t like this one, and I as well had advised him to re-do many of the parts in it, particularly those that were more about other people personally. We did another one the following day that, in my opinion, would have been of much greater service to its potential viewers. Unfortunately, after our time together had come to an end, Delson had asked me to not publish it – or any of the other videos we had created together, mostly us happily shooting the shit about the Dharma. I’m sorry to see this one online; I was hoping Delson would eventually reconsider so that we could post the better one we had made. ===

I believe you have a similar underlying intention to what drove me to make this video: arriving at a deeper truth than what was previously presented, and finding, and bringing to people, the truest Dharma. I'm sorry you were made crazy. It looks to be in the same vein as how the video I had made with Delson was called "slimy", with him making the claim that I had "an agenda to destroy TWIM". I was sad to see your rebuffed attempts at communicating with Delson, again and again, and you being pushed away. I wish you had gotten a chance to have a real, one of one conversation with him where you could have expressed yourself plainly, not needing to speak to intermediaries and running up against walls even when hoping to ask a simple question about the Dharma in a container made just for that. I myself have gone through a similar, and incredibly frustrating, experience of this sort with Delson and it felt awful. I value your desire to get at the truth. This as well was my intention in the videos I had recorded with Delson. I hope that it shows even in this video that was the first and flawed iteration of this conversation between us. ===

My desire was to give Delson an opportunity to talk about his own, first hand experience, without the “confines” of an interview that he was sent to do as a representative of TWIM or where he was needing to arrive at some pre-designed conclusion or message. To allow him to be truly himself, and fully accountable for any harmful impact his previous words had had on his students and followers – myself included. I was excited to use this opportunity, of a straight-talk conversation with Delson, a teacher I appreciate very much and was valuable for me on my own path – to show how even such a highly attained master of meditation can still suffer from human issues directing their behaviors in ways that skew the deeper truth, that sin to the Dharma that they otherwise are exemplars of. And make no mistake – in many ways, Delson is an exemplar of the Dharma. He's just also “still human”, driven unconsciously by old wounds and traumas and fears, with unaligned behaviors resulting from that. Our time together was characterized by many conversations around these issues, about the path that goes beyond just the "Waking Up" vector of development (in Integral Theory parlance). About "Growing Up" -- taking on more perspectives, being more inclusive and caring for all humans. And particularly, about "Cleaning Up" and “Showing Up”: Reclaiming shadows, healing old developmental trauma and maladaptive belief systems, And showing up authentically in every moment, true to one’s self and the immediate experience, bringing one’s self fully to relationships and to all interactions with the world. Delson ended up talking about a lot of his conclusions from our time together around these topics in the recent Guru Viking interview, which I am very happy about!, but hasn't really owned the way that he was driven by these issues, by his own personal and challenging life circumstances, in a way that has created harmful impact – which I am sure he is not happy about, being aware of the harm that was caused to his students and followers. My desire in this interview – and, again, we did a better job in the next one that we did want to publish – was to flesh this out so that Delson's students and followers could learn from the complete path of their teacher, not just from his knowledge of Suttas and Jhanic practices. There is so much more to this path! I was hoping Delson would take accountability for his actions, reflect to people the impact that was done and show empathy for it, apologize for any actions which he now realizes are unaligned, discuss how he can and will do better – and, mainly, that he speaks openly about how something like this could have happened as a result of shadows, of unhealed trauma, of unhealthy projections on the world resulting from unmet and frozen childhood needs that one can carry even as an adult, even as a master of multiple “spiritual practices”. I thought this would be doing a service to the Theravada Dharma community and the "spiritual"/"awakening community at large, having someone like Delson express himself in this manner and show up so beautifully, vulnerably, openly. The Guru Viking interview, in my view, was characterized by "ifpologies". "If I hurt someone, then I apologize". A real apology, in my world, contains a clear statement of "I apologize for this action that I had taken". A particularly skillful apology is followed up with an acknowledgment of any impact, any harm that might have been done, and with empathy for any difficult and challenging emotions and situations created. Taking accountability is then, at the least, showing what you’ve learned, what you’re going to change about how you show up, and even shedding light on what made you show up in the way that caused the issue to begin with. ===

I want to believe I understand where you’re coming from. I get a sense that we both had a flavor of the same frustrating experience with Delson. I myself still see Delson as my friend and believe in his inherent goodness, in his capacity to learn and evolve and go beyond old mistakes. I believe sitting down for this conversation was part of this process for him, even as perhaps later he was a little scared about the implications of showing up this way, so vulnerably and openly, in a way that challenges his teacher persona. I wish at some point he changes his mind and wishes to publish all of the videos we had created. I truly believe the iteration on this video we had made would have only aided his path, both as a human on this planet and as a teacher of Dharma. Until that time, and for now, I have submitted a takedown request to YouTube. You have published a video that belongs to me without contacting me and without my permission. I’m asking that even before any action by YouTube, you take this down yourself. If and when Delson chooses to have the updated iteration of this conversation published, you are more than welcome to publish your take and analysis of it then.

​​​​​​​All the best, -- Dor Konforty

Hi Bahiya

My thoughts as follows:

1. People do not know what awakening is until they attain it.
2. People are sold a story  that is more or less palatable to them. Awakening will make you  kinder, softer, warmer, more socially amicable
3. Then when people start practicing being kinder, softer, warmer, more socially amicable - they find that whatever they  practice is now persisting and now seems to deliver some peace - so this becomes the benchmark of measuring the success of awakening practice in one's own self and also in other people.

4. But now what does 'kinder' mean? kinder to whom? Kinder by whose standards? There is this really amazing video of Ajahn Maha Boowa. He spends the first 5 minutes using the choicest of abuses for some of the children of his monastery's patrons calling them 'dogs shitting all over the place'. Apparently the kids were being unruly and Maha Boowa disapproved. A western audience would be shocked by the language. An oriental audience would be like ... Oh shit! The Arhat does not approve! I will control my kids! the video is a hoot: Luangta Maha Bua: “Kammathana (the basis of practice) are also kilesas” (sub en/de)

5. The Delson entire Dharma Drama is predicated upon what other people think is going on in Delson's head.

6. If other people knew what awakening is through direct personal experience, they wouldn't judge Delson without having details of his practice

7. If Delson knew what awakening is he wouldnt have permitted people to respect him, follow him, look to him for leadership based on complete misunderstanding of the attainment. What he is saying now ... he would have said long ago! Maybe just maybe Delson is now slowly waking up to what awakening is and what it can deliver! 

8. Regarding the Jedi Bhikku I think he is a crazy bugger who needs a therapist

The Jedi Man is absolutely right imho, but with all due respect this is the same situation with all people claiming attainments described in suttas be it SE or Arhatship. People are just not talking about the same thing and I don't get why it's still a subject of debate. On one side you have people who mostly mean well, have gone through thousands (if ten of thousands) of hours of dedicated practice in various techniques, went through differents sets of mind blowing experience thanks to which they usually enjoy permanent perceptual shifts and need to make sense of it all. At this end they use the 4 path model as an overall structure in which they try their best to fit their past experiences and current lived experience.

On the other side you have a set of people, monk or lay, who stick to the sutta definition of the 4 path and what those imply. Meaning, at arhatship you become absolutely immovable whatever comes to you. Peeling your skin alive, kiling your family in front of your eye and so forth. Pleasure and pain can still be felt but no grumpiness, no anxiety, no craving whatsoever even for nice food. You rely on no one and nothing, everything can be taken from you in an instant and you'd still be absolutely fine. A rhinoceros alone in the wild.

So Delson and all the other arhats are indeed arahants, no question about it, but in their own definitions which just doesn't match the sutta criteria. In the video Delson explains he likes sleeping and needs it (showed that he indeed lied in the Guru viking itw btw), he likes good food and abuses it pointing to his belly and he also explains that he is attached to his family. This is all fine but remember that the Buddha praised an arahant who, when his ex-wife brought his baby in front of him, didn't even look at it. The Buddha then said : "it's how every arahant should behave." 
All the problem arises when either the modern day arahants claim to fit the sutta criteria or the followers of suttas expect to see arahant like external behaviors in modern day arahant. That's it.
Once you stop trying  to fit cubes in circles everything starts to be fine.

To the best of my knowledge there is only one sutta that goes explicitly by the name of 'the criteria' sutta. In pali its called the atthinukhopariyaayo sutta.

Its a fantastically technical sutta. Highly recommend.

Well said. The confusion comes from using one term to describe many things, and using one map to describe many places. 

Delson had a particular challenge in that there were a lot of people who wanted him to be an arhat (perhaps because he reported success in NS and that maps to arhat, or perhaps because of his position within TWIM) and he didn't push back. He kind of accepted that label and acted as if he had all the attributes he thought went with that label. It might have been better if he had just stuck to describing his experience. 

"So Delson and all the other arhats are indeed arahants, no question about it, but in their own definitions which just doesn't match the sutta criteria."

Isn't that the only legit criteria - being the words of the man him(not)self?

Or the words of his biographers.

Well, you could have a fool proposing that the metric of arhatship is ..... an understanding of Zen literature
You could have another fool proposing that the metric is ...... perceptual upgrades ... while dukkha keeps showing up

Which fool are you going to subscribe to?

Indeed...
Things are simple and they only require total transparency with oneself.
Can modern day arahants still experience mental suffering without altering their perceptions in any way to avoid it ?
For example, these arahants just have to ask themselves : If my children and wife were taken from me in an instant what would I feel ? Or a more subtle one : can I right now become a monk, stay in seclusion for the remaining part of my life knowing that I won't be able to ever speak again to my relatives or anyone else ? What stops me from doing this right now ?
There was once a great reddit post that advocated modern day arahants should be seen as sutta stream enterers : 
https://www.reddit.com/r/streamentry/comments/igored/insight_buddhism_a_reconsideration_of_the_meaning/

The risk is that you can spend your whole life wondering about who is right and wrong and end up not taking a single step on the path...

What does an arahant feel?  Would they care if their wife and child were taken from them? Well, if they give a shit about them, how can they be an arahant? The suttas say blah blah blah. It shouldn't affect them at all...blah blah blah. Those that are not arahants simply don't know what an arahant experiences. Is Delson an arahant? I don't know and no matter how well I've memorized the Pali Canon, it doesn't give me the slightest idea what enlightenment is as an exerience. What is suffering when there is no sufferer? Does pain go away if you are an arahant, or does the definition of pain no longer make sense if there is no self to feel it? Do you still show a reaction to pain? What if they stub their toe? An arahant shouldn't even react, right? Does that mean there is no pain? The relationship to suffering is not even comprehensible if there isn't a sufferer. What use is it to sit and wonder and then delusionally think that we can intellectually comprehend something that is beyond the mind to comprehend? When someone quotes the suttas and uses them to intellectually prove someone can never be an arahant based on their understanding of the Dharma? All I ask is, how the fuck do you know? 
I don't know Delson and have no interest in his attainments, I'd still love to talk to him about his experience. The video seems to be made by someone with a grudge against Delson and an intellectual understanding of the dharma, philosophy and logical argument. Doesn't mean they know what they are talking about. But, who knows, he might be an arahant too.

 "I believe you have a similar underlying intention to what drove me to make this video: arriving at a deeper truth than what was previously presented, and finding, and bringing to people, the truest Dharma." - Jedi Bhikkhu

May the Force be with you, especially those of you in the YouTube comments.

But yeah, its a lot of blah blah blah, with some 'yikes' and 'yawns' in there for me. I suppose if someone were to offer to pay me, i'd watch the whole video (per second, that is).  Perhaps if there were more capitalized letters in the video title, i would be more intrigued.

Delson Armstrong... the guy who can enter NS for extended periods of time and let some scientists hook him up to a machine to run studies on him, like someone with nothing to hide would do?  Oh yeah, that Delson Armstrong.  Why would we trust science though, if it conflicts with our preconceived notions of how we think things should be and what works and what doesn't.

I've wasted enough time already...

EDIT: I just briefly looked through this poster (Jedi Bhikku's) channel, it's actually pretty concerning and creepy, like serious stalker vibes to this guy and his channel.  I hope the people like Delson and Daniel that this guy seems to be very aggressively targeting are okay.  This is how people get hurt. Jesus.
It's okay if you don't believe someone's claims or whatever, but can we just not be psycho about it?  At the very least, be professional about it.  

I immediately got the sense that this Jedi was a weirdo in, like, not a good way.  Unfortunately it seems that initial sense was correct
 

Anyway...
"Dharma Police, arrest this man..."

​​​​​​​

 Yeah dude is the visual embodiment of 'dark night yogi'. Frightening energy and what's so funny is he had videos where he would point at stuff like this and be like "This dude is lying about being an Arhat because his eyes did some funny thing." Really unhinged and he has a suprising amount of subscribers, I've looked through his comment section a little too much to be honest lol but it's this real like superior, sutta purist, snobby type stuff but literally never any discussion of actual meditation. It's a weird scene. 

I originally thought, watching the guru viking interview, that it was this jedi dude that had somehow manipulated Delson into some kind of "Gotcha" interview. 

Well, I read a few of the comments too and it was, yeah as you describe

this is why the arhats say, 'Never read the comments'

I get the sense of entitlement from his videos, like he feels he's owed a lot from these people. And unless you yourself have evolved past these supposed defilements I don't think you have any business critiquing others so harshly.

That said though some of the critizisms of Vimalaramsi does seems well founded.

Whoever we are and whatever we do in the dharma - non-practitioner, beginner, mid-path yogi, experienced practitioner, awakened, dharma teacher, or guru - we're all human beings. Nothing we do can remove that blessing and stain. Keeping this in mind provides a wiser lens through which to see what's possible and what isn't when it comes to others, their behavior, and their claims. The complications people say, and post, is just so much blah, blah, blah. It's quite simple, really.

It's remarkable how much aversion there is in this thread to the person criticizing Mr. Armstrong in the video. Having watched it several times, the points seem well made and of even measure, tame even. This video has clearly exposed Delson for what he is: a con artist and a liar who lied in his discussion with Daniel Ingram and never would have passed the hottie in a hot tub test, and yet the maker of the video doesn't even give him a lashing for that. So I wonder why there is so much focus on the critic and his appearance etc.?  Very childish.

The critic has a very strong, negative opinion, that has crossed the line into obsession. I watched it once, not several times, but his agenda, his clinging to a perceived wrong, his aversion toward the subject of his criticism, is obvious. I am not buying the version of the Dharma the critic is selling. And that's ok. It's only an opinion. I think the critic would benefit from reading the Zen story of the two monks and the woman. They need to let that shit go.

I mean the guy makes a couple arguments based off the looks of Delson as well, which is pretty disingenuous. Can an arahant not have a lazy eye?

Ah, so this you see as justification for wrong speech? What is disingenuous about it? I think it is a sound argument. aarhat would not eat for putting on bulk and would not store up food etc. Whether his being fat is the cause of his spots, I don't think he can say for sure, but he is saying it is the cause. As to the eye, I do not think you have followed the argument well. It seems to me that he was saying that lazy eye can be a cause for over estimation. So it isn't that arhat cannot have a lazy eye (although he is not a lazy person), but that lazy eye can cause someone to stumble into thinking he is an arhat when it isn't so.

Did the woman in this story claim to be an arhat and harm people as the video indicates? Surely when a dangerous person is roaming it is not a good time to "let it go" and fail to alarm the neighborhood.

  Ibrahim, let me save you some trouble- Delson has renounced all of his attainments.  There, you win!

(I'd probably renounce my attainments too if I was getting stalked like this.  I'd be surprised if he hasn't gotten death threats.)
  

No I'm just saying it may be cause for being consistent. Going after someones looks is cheap and indeed childish. Point taken though, he was making an argument, but I do not follow why a lazy eye would be cause for over estimation.

It was hard to follow, but I can summarize my understanding: Mr. Armstrong and Mr. DiLullo tell that their expiernece of being awake is found mostly in the eye sense (something regarding the way things look/wide vision). Mr. Untangled is saying that they mistake this fact of their lazy eyes for being awakened, when really it is just an accident of thier birth or injury. So there is the over estimation: from this wide vision they estimate being awake (while still shovelling food, wearing gold,...)

Ibrahim, you should read the story. Why are you still carrying the woman?
​​​​​​​

I am not a fan of either teacher mentioned above -also have nothing against them- but this is fairly obviously a mischaracterization of their message and what they have shared.  They discuss far more than the eye sense. I'm not saying either teacher is an Arhat but I have experienced both of them discussing the phenomenology of their experience across a range of senses. 

How would someone born with a lazy eye, who was born suffering, who recognized they were suffering, who has discussed their suffering with the world and how meditation practice attenuated that suffering - whether or not it ended it - mistake the lazy eye they already had for awakening?

If one were in the business of criticizing meditation teachers I think there are far better criticisms than this, particularly, as it happens, in relation to these teachers. 

Also, conversationally people tend to lean toward discussing specific senses, it is more difficult -in the English language at least- to discuss senses simultaneously and people tend to have a natural bias, often towards sight or feeling. 

The point I made on the original thread is once again relavent here. 

If you want to talk about attainments... show your work, log your meditation, participate with your peers, get peer reviewed, compare your attainments, experiences, openly, with honesty, in collaboration, such that all can benefit, such that all who might be interested in working with you can get a real sense of you, such that you yourself can get a sense of what is actually possible, what awakening actually is in a pragmatic, tangible sense, for others and for you. 

At this point in history without that kind of peer review you're just some internet guru. 

If one doesn't have the vulnerability required to do this earnestly then I'm not convinced about any awakening they have on offer. 
If one thinks they are above this process or does not appreciate the value of it then I'm not convinced about any awakening they have on offer.

It has been my experience, through many years and across many varied scenarios with teachers and meditators both in person and online that those who refuse or avoid this kind of peer review of their own practice and attainments are always engaged in manipulative egoic activities. (Influence, profit, sexual deviance, etc) 

All persons mentioned above, including Being Untangled, are hereby welcomed to keep a log of their meditation practice. I hope they consider at least the benefit it brings to all beings to have ones claims to attainments thoroughly peer reviewed. 
 
 

Bahiya Baby, I do not understand why anyone would bother considering the lazy eye thing either now that the video at the beginning of this thread is here. It is plain to see from Mr. Armstrong's own words that he is no arhat. This lazy eye focus stems from the aversion some here have to the person who made that video public, who whatever you think of his look, seems to have been correct on Mr. Armstrong long before this video came up.

If Mr. Armstrong had kept a log of pracitce and still made these statements, would we view him as an arhat just because of something written there? Even when he acts the way he does in the video?

Discussions and skepticism around TWIM and Delson have already occured on this forum at length on a number of occasions. 

If mr Armstrong kept a log of his practice he might become a more honest, wise and insightful character. He might participate within a community that could lead to his cultivating deeper wisdom, honesty and compassion through participation with others and without the hierarchical trappings of his role at TWIM. 

What is the value of asking 'if he had done x and he still did y would we ..' 

He did y and didn't do x. Nobody can know what would happen if he had kept a log. 

Its not about viewing people as Arhats. It's about the end of suffering being a reproducible attainment. Viewing someone as an Arhat is itself a sankhara. It is a wrong view. 

Being exposed on the internet for whatever reasons does not preclude you from later achieving deeper insight, cultivating compassion and engaging in the world with honesty. 

Meditation is very powerful. When one practices it and can share experience with and receive guidance from others, one can undergo very powerful transformations. Transmission in one form or another plays a key role in awakening, from Buddha to Buddha. Teaching is important. Adopting the role of a teacher for egoic purposes is thus a shady business.

​​​​​​​I hope Delson, his supporters and detractors can one day come to understand this. 

...

​​​​​​​Someone who takes the time to make a YouTube channel, dedicated to 'exposing' people is someone who deserves a healthy dose of skepticism themselves... Frankly. In this particular case Being Untangled is respectfully invited to share their practice, their experience of the world and their suffering. It is this sort of discourse that we welcome with open arms. 

"Namo Tassa Bhagavato Arahato Sammāsambuddhassa" is wrong view to you?

No it's not but attachment to or identification with attainments or the attainments of others is obviously. 

Creating a sankhara around someone else's attainment obviously is. 

​​​​​​​Assuming you individually can ascertain this information about an other or make these claims about yourself without peer review is sankhara. 

​​​​​​​With peer review it is still difficult. Without it, it is just folly. 

Bahiya Baby, can you point to sutta which says peer review and meditation logs are on the path?

Upaddha sutta, to name but one. 

Literally any sutta which talks about the importance of Sangha

​​​​​​​Meditation logs and peer review is how we, in 2024, maintain a high quality  of practice and ensure people aren't deceiving themselves or others. 

Ibrahim consider yourself invited to share your own experience of suffering and your path to the end of suffering. 

​​​​​​​You can find many logs here of different practicioners at varying degrees of skill and experience. 

Ibrahim, are you the critic in the video? This would be a more genuine conversation if we knew your relationship to this critic person.

Also see

Cūḷahatthipadopama Sutta

​​​​​​​For a more direct example

​​​​​

But what if it is like in Subha sutta, a case of one blind man leading another.? If peers are not arhats, then what use are peers?

All suttas in which the Buddha converts someone from a different spiritual discipline 

Tends to include discussion of what I am pointing to. 

​​​​​​​The Buddha made himself open to scrutiny. Thoroughly. The suttas make this abundantly clear. 

Whether you believe any person in the wide spiritual world is an Arhat is ultimately up to you. How you define that is also up to you. 

I have found the best way to ascertain this is to sit with people, receive dharma instruction from them and determine whether or not their advice leads towards the end of suffering. 

​​​​​​​Thus you can infer why I am here and not involved with any other tradition or group of teachers. 

Bahiya Baby, indeed it seems that if Mr. Armstrong's statements had been scrutinized closely 3 years ago in his first showing, there never would have been this confusion.

I assure you I was skeptical and scrutinized. But nobody listens to me. 

​​​​​​​

A certain amount of scrutiny about our own practice and understanding of ourselves is of course very healthy. 

​​​​​​​Surrounding yourself with a community who can compassionately scrutinize you is I think also of great importance. 

It's ok to get things wrong but it's certainly worse karmically when one has already accrued followers. 

There is a huge problem with the Jedi Bhikkhu.

He has made a few people a personal project. Specifically Delson, Vimalaramsi. He has in the past also tried to bring a few other people into the ambit of his very public smear campaign.
This is a problem, socially unacceptable, gives creepy stalker vibes.

But there is a deeper problem at play. The suttas, the Dhamma, Buddha, Sangha ... they exist for us as practitioners. We dont exist for them. These things have instrumental value in terms of being tools to achieve something for ourselves. To achieve Dukkha nirodha. But to take a superficial intellectual and personal understanding of the suttas and start to attack yogis doing or teaching yog is extremely weird.

It is absolutely OK to have objections to what other people say on various topics and then to express those opinions in public forums. It is even better if one can speak to the topic and not attack the person. It is very difficult to do, so some degree of speaking to/attacking the person is likely to happen. 

But to go from there ... to a multi year project of personal attacks is a sign of a very unhealthy obsession.

I dont think the Jedi Bhikkhu is right in the head. I genuinely think that he needs to see a therapist or at the barest minimum completely walk away from all of these abstract but powerful ideas of protecting the triple gem (or whatever else tumbles around in his head).

I dont know the Jedi Bhikkhu. But dude ... if you are reading this ... walk away. Take a clean break from the world inside your head. You will find a fuckton of people cheering for you, egging you on in this highly unskillful obsession. They dont care about you, they dont care about your wellbeing. Walk away.

To quote a very wise man:


Many voices shout at once, yet no-one thinks that they’re the fool.
Even as the Saṅgha splits,they think no better of the other.Dolts pretending to be astute, they talk, their words out of bounds. 
They blab at will, their mouths agape, and not one knows what leads them on.‘They abused me, they hit me!
They beat me, they robbed me!’
For those bearing such a grudge, hatred is never laid to rest.‘They abused me, they hit me!
They beat me, they robbed me!’
For those who bear no such grudge, hatred is laid to rest.For never is hatred laid to rest by hate, it’s laid to rest by love: this is an ancient teaching.When others do not understand, let us, who do understand this, let us restrain ourselves, restrain ourselves in this regard; for that is how conflicts are laid to rest.Breakers of bones and takers of life, thieves of cattle, horses, wealth, those who plunder the nation: even they can come together, so why can’t you?If you find an alert companion, an attentive friend to live happily together, then, overcoming all adversities, wander with them, joyful and mindful.If you find no alert companion, no attentive friend to live happily together, then, like a king who flees his conquered realm, wander alone like a tusker in the wilds.It’s better to wander alone, there’s no fellowship with fools. Wander alone and do no wrong, at ease like a tusker in the wilds.

I did sit under Delson on retreat and have watched his guru viking episodes, and it's clear his integrity has come across in all of them. Sometimes you just dont notice your blind spots. I'm sure a lot of that community follows his work.

Honestly that's the thing with blind spots isn't it... Hard to notice

Hey, I think you might find this new video the Jedi guy put out a few hours ago relevant. 
I've only watched the first hour so far but there really is some darn interesting stuff and also quite a lot of (morally) disturbing content, like Saints and Psychopaths territory.

https://youtu.be/OQ9a-OFRj_g?si=Y3EyJ25FzXOh7IsJ
EDIT: The title is 'Exploited, abused and cast out. A peek inside TWIM's cult playbook'

I've listened to about half the interview. It sounds like a hot mess of a cult.

Mr. Vader Sir, you are clearly obsessed with this Jedi person and yet you go on about how he should not be obsessed. But what has Jedi ever done to harm you or anyone you know? And yet we find out that Mr. Armstrong and Mr. Johnson have been doing many unwholesome things in these lengthy videos, and we only discover this because of Mr. Untangle's effort to bring a light upon it. You do not seem to be thinking rightly.

Ibrahim

Any organization with a leadership will see political struggles. Based on the video Balint has shared here in this thread, Mr Armstrong and Mr. Johnson have been very naughty boys indeed.

The Jedi Bhikkhu hasnt harmed me in any way, neither have Mr. Armstrong or Mr. Johnson. And yes, I am absolutely fascinated by the Jedi Bhikkhu. I dont plan to create a five hour long video on the topic though

​​​​​​​Ibrahim .... are you the Jedi Bhikkhu by any chance? If you are please let me know and I will change the flippant tone that I am using to speak about the Jedi Bhikkhu (who may or may not be you). You are here in this forum, being super polite, I will extend to you the same courtesy - in case you are the Jedi Bhikkhu

Mr. Vader, I am not Jedi nor Bhikkhu. I am amazed that here blame and criticism are being heaped on the man who brings wrongdoing to light rather than the men who did the wrong thing, and people who are obsessed over nothing but the way a person looks (which is very petty and small), criticise the person for being obsessed with bringing an end to harm and suffering (which is very noble and big). Would you tell Buddha to ignore Bhikkhus wrongdoing when brought before him, to not make a v rule or judgement but instead let it go like the two Bhikkhus and the woman (a trivial thing) and allow such wrongdoing to go on? This is very wrong thinking you have here Mr. Vader. It is clear from this latest video that these people are very much hurting peopel and you stand here in support of that because you think a person who cares person looks funny. Respectfully, you should be shamed, Mr. Vader.

Well anyway, this thread confirms a lot of my hunches.


An old post of mine: 
​​​​​​​https://www.dharmaoverground.org/discussion/-/message_boards/view_message/27638684#_com_liferay_message_boards_web_portlet_MBPortlet_message_27646628

"allow such wrongdoing to go on?"

Lol Ibrahim. You need to relax. Have a chilled beer, eat a nice mutton kebab.

"you stand here in support of that because you think a person who cares person looks funny"

Ibrahim, my dude .... WTF!

"you should be shamed, Mr. Vader"

​​​​​​​Should I now?

Ibrahim I get the feeling you're way too identified with this narrative for us to ever take you seriously. Probably best to let it go and move on. We're not your enemy, we just happen to not like some guy on the internet that you like. It's really not a big deal. 

​​​​​​​Common throughout your messages is a tendency to mischaracterize and over simplify people's beliefs, communications and assertions. It would be difficult for me to believe that you are doing that by accident. I must assume you have an agenda. 

I'm not forming any judgments in this case because I don't know enough yet, but...

Buddhism does have a guru problem that raises its ugly head often enough. I'd hate to think we would fail to recognize this situation when called out because we disliked the person delivering the message. So... it's probably a good idea for us all to separate the message from the messenger.

Remember San Francisco Zen Center/Richard Baker. Remember Lama Norlha Rinpoche. Remember Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche. Remember Noah Levine. Remember Joshu Sasaki Roshi. Remember Culadasa. 

The folks who first report abuse are often repudiated and even shamed, and not just by angry followers of the abusers.

Caution is advised!

  +1  to Chris
​​​​​​​Anyone (especially those in a position of power) who are involved in abusive behavior should be exposed.  Anyone who has been a victim of abuse should feel safe to make their experiences known, without fear of being shamed, discredited, or harmed. People should be warned to stay away from these toxic individuals.

In my humble opinion, the best thing that we can do as practitioners is to simply avoid any sort of guru-based practice or organization. Avoid the idealization of teachers, avoid the power dynamic games that always seem to take place in these types of organizations.  And if someone tells you that they have been a victim, listen to them.  Hear them.

A short anecdote from my own personal experience which seems relevant to this particular discussion:

I was raised in a fundamentalist Christian setting (which is not uncommon in the USA), that I would describe as very cult-like, it was very misogynistic, and toxic for many reasons.  My father was certain that our faith was true, while others were not.  “Those Mormons,” he used to say all the time, “they’re in a cult.”

For what it’s worth: I am not all familiar with TWIM.  All that I know about Delson Armstrong is from part of one interview that I watched on Guru Viking.  So, I really have no opinion on it.  

Yeah it's kinda a double problem, because yeah obviously powerful people can do harmful things, and do even in Buddhism. But a good chunk of that is students not understand/ "enlightenment" getting Romanized. Like Culadasa I believe went on guru viking and talked about the blowout that happened with his scandals, and like the perspective he gives is that of an old guy who after a long messy divorce with his wife found someone new he was interested with, however it through his sangha and that made it very messy (but like with where he was it would make sense he would naturally spend a lot of time with his sangha). Plus he admits to being a SE at the time (later in that podcast, if i recall correctly, he says he got second path later using a different technique), but it sounds like a lot of people were using him as like the watermark for what "enlightened behavior" is.

Buddhist teachers should adhere to the same moral/ethical standards that any of us must follow. And abide by the law. No "enlightened behavior" condones the crossing of those lines. Again - we are all human beings. Nothing more.

“Those Mormons,” he used to say all the time, “they’re in a cult.”

People eh!

Buddhism *is* a cult. If you get more than a million members it gets classified as a religion, but they're all cults. The world is all cults. It's just that people in big cults get to lord it about people in little cults. If you shave your head, adopt special clothing, and change your name, go live in a special place for special people  - none of which have anything to do with spiritual wisdom - you're in a cult.
Jeans and t-shirt, called Dave or Sharon, normal hair cut - signs of freedom and non-specialness.

Ooh, could we dive into what really makes a cult a cult?

I don't think it's what you wear or how you look.

It has much more to do with personal ownership for "learning" , the not giving away of inner authority/critical thinking, and the ability to say your acutal truth without fear of punishment. A cult is a co-dependent relationship where we expect to be taught, become depended on the authority figure to tell us what to do, and need to learn what is safe and not safe to talk about or we'll be kicked out.

Overall , when you are actually learning, you become more independent. You are expected by a good teacher to become a teacher yourself (if you want). When you are in a cult, you become more and more dependent on being "taught" the one right way... and the only way to become a teacher is to sell your soul to the organization.

I think cults are also about control. They're based on the creation of an envelope of thinking and behavior and coercing the members to remain within that envelope. And punishing those who stray.

Religion /= cult.

Buddhism, per se, is not a cult any more than Christianity is a cult, or Islam is a cult.

To conflate religions and cults is mistaken. (Or maybe trolling.)

True, but it's also interesting how cults cater to people who want to give up control/responsibility in the first place. Very co-dependent.

I think I'd use the word "capture." I know there are people who more easily succumb to cults, but once in, even if they want to get out, they're faced with the punishment and coercion of the cult. 

Yeah, capture is a great word for it.

Hello everybody,
I don't understand that some spend their energy disparaging the interviewer, when the content is so out there and really deserves comments...
So, I'll throw a few without pondering it too much...

I just listened to the first three hours (ahaha) of Humberto's testimonial and I find it really interesting. It's mainly him relating his experience in a pretty balanced way, although he seems quite fragile and persecuted when it comes to it. It really looks like there's a plot going on to get to his money (Delson asking him to give away his property to him, fully knowing that he wants to get rid of his possessions to enter the life of a renunciate). So a lot of creepy suggestion seems to be going on on a large scale (not just toward the samanera), starting with announcing attainments to the meditators... The Jiddu (Jedi?) Bikkhu rightly points out that it's a good way to get more donations at the end of the course!

About the Jedi (Jiddu?) Bikkhu, to me, he seems a little stiff, yes, but he's not so unlike Humberto in the sense that they both had great expectations about the eight-fold noble path and practice, which we would deem here as unrealistic (see Daniel's models), reinforced by super intense-out-there experiences. They did put great faith in their teachers, only to get greatly disappointed by... the scam?

And while the interviewer seems a bit off referring to the suttas as to some holy scriptures (what? Am I in Dhammawheel?), Humberto touched me with his humble way of dealing with his experiences, and his innocence while being groomed toward the holy life, which he embraced without hesitation.

David Johnson comes out as... evil, really, and totally turned toward worldly pursuits (the bitcoin investment bit is funny, and the hypnotist past is telling).

Delson in Dor's interview: "I am an endless river of teachings" (well, I did not listen to the interview again to find the exact quote, there are better ways to spend one's day, but he said it twice, first time he was an ocean of teachings, and I was flabbergasted by his humility and simplicity). Also "I teach because I am well supported", meaning "I get a fair amount of money".

And his story about not taking the money to "help his mother and sister" off his share of the donation for the course (but before splitting the rest with the co-teacher), and feeling that's normal. And Humberto's story about the Merc'...

It seems highly probable (now even more than it did then) that Delson "exagerated" a bit about his nirodha samapati abilities...
Well, I don't understand how some can keep on defending him, he's way past "not perfect in the perfection model sense"... and I'll stop there before indulging in wrong speech!

All this convinces me that cessations are orthogonal to the development of sila. If I want to become a "better" human being, I've got to work on it directly... Humberto also tells us first-hand what happens in the mind of somebody who wants to embrace monkhood, after going through depression and ongoing non dual experience. He also says he spent the first 27 years of his life with the Jehovah's witnesses... Who spoke of cults?

It hints to the fact that a lot of people signing for retreats are somehow fragile. Oh, and Delson and co. organizing a retreat for very wealthy people? (Dor being one of the organizer it seems)... Ok I stop now, I get carried away... But I guess I'll listen to the end!

And I am thankful to Being Entangled (or Jedi Bikkhu) for bringing this into the light. It satisfies my curiosity and my hunch that something was off with TWIM and Delson...I do hope that it will lead to some more confrontational interviews of Armstrong and/or Johnson in Guruviking maybe ('cause he's been really accommodating so far, but I do like him).

with... some amount of sideration?
​​​​​​​smiling stone

I agree, Shagrol, you've got the essence of a cult down, but I do think clothes are a marker. Special clothes set you apart. They tell the outside world, and the people within the group, that group membership or spiritual identity is central to who you are. Imagine interviewing for a job or going on a first date in robes and a shaved head. In that way, they limit the people from whom you can expect acceptance and they limit your own ability to deviate from that without causing a negative reaction in those around you. Imagine a person dressed in robes doing shots at the local bar and asking if anyone wants to play pool for twenty bucks a game. 

You can wear special clothes without being in a cult but, because they limit freedom of identity in these ways, they are tools that cults often use, so clothes give my internal cult-o-meter a +1 reading.

On the topic of clothes in general, when I see a spiritual teacher (other than a traditional monastic) in special clothes, my analysis is that they don't believe that their teaching is sufficient to gain the level of respect they want, and so they are using the clothes as a booster, which gives my wisdom-o-meter a -1 reading. 

He does and it seems everybody forgot the short passage in the guru viking interview where they were all talking about the nirodha samapatti he was tested for and the scientist explained that unexpectedly the talking part of his brain stayed on which was not supposed to be the case...

I was thinking that it would be interesting to see what the panel (including Shinzen) might have to say about these developments. At the time, I thought they were surprisingly credulous. 

You're right. 

I probably would have joined the Aroter group back in the 1980's except for the clothes/hair/earings (and the tithing). 

We'll have to disagree about the major religions being cults. You seem to have an extremely loose definition of "cult."

Yeah, to be clear, the point I was trying make was that this 'reaction video' series seems to me like 'my cult is better than your cult' and as much as I do wish for any abusive behavior to be exposed and for victims to be brought justice, I question whether the author of these videos is doing justice to the alleged victims, or making things worse. 


That said, I am reaching that conclusion based on appearances, and as someone who is mostly non-interested and ignorant to TWIM and its teachers, I probably had no business commenting on this in the first place.

But since I have, The appearances that I am basing that off are:

-the nature of the videos (the titles, the thumbnails, the format) which seem highly manipulated and 'clickbaity', as if designed to trigger a knee jerk type emotional response from the viewer
​​​​​​​
-the tone of many of the comments in the comments section (in which the author is an active participant) which appear very condescending and self-righteous, blaming anyone who disagrees with them 

-what appears to be an unhealthy obsession the author has developed in his quest to expose these teachers he sees as frauds. He has apparently financially ruined himself in the making of these videos and has now started a GoFundMe asking for $60,000: https://ko-fi.com/BeingUntangled(That’s from his YouTube channel homepage, donate if you want!)
For his own sake, it seems like the author should let this go. He’s made his point, very thoroughly might I add.

There's 'shooting the messenger', and then there's not knowing if you can trust the message being presented, and not having the time or energy to parse through everything to get to the actual truth.

Re: cults. Sure, if you use a very loose definition, everything is a cult. But some stuff is definitely more culty than others. Like, the Whole Foods Cult is not equally as dangerous as Heaven’s Gate for example. I actually just had one of their pizza slices yesterday, not too bad.

​​​​​​​That reminds me of a cool podcast:https://www.soundslikeacult.com

Those Zen monks sure do have cool robes though! And nice poems too. And cool little sand garden and mini trees.

Japan has always been a leader in cosplay. 

Martin that comment made me laugh twice today.

I think I should make my own YouTube channel, I'm waaay more enlightened then anyone really. For example, the peak I climbed was a lot taller then the peak you climbed.

I feel like throwing up. I never want to be enlightened, worst idea ever.

Sounds like we should get an emesis bag

Too late it's everywhere! If only I knew what I was getting myself into.

Sometimes when I go for walks I notice the worms moving away from grassy areas by crossing the concrete footpath but many of them dry up and die in the sun. So the next time around I tried to pick them up and put them back on the grass thinking I saved them. Later on I found out that they leave the grass because its too wet and they can't breathe. Not to mention the worms I squashed as a result of trying to pick them up.

I have saved a dragon fly from a Web though. I'd say the spider wasn't happy about that one 

I don't remember anything about the worms being sad though.

I had the best intentions but some worms still died, a spider went hungry too. That's life

I've got a good awareness of the normal ambiguity and overlapping nature of words and the blindness of loyalty is what I've got.<br />Buddhism's clearly a big cult. Cults always have to manage their reputations.

We're back on this cult thing? I consider myself a buddhist. Am i in this cult now? I never got an invitation or message stating what i signed up for how come no one informed me! How rude

Well, I have a really good instinct, developed over years of managing message boards, for knowing a troll when I see one. 

What religion doesn't qualify aa cult when you think of it. ..I heard an advocate(lawyer)for a "cult member" say  " a cult is just a religion that is not large enough to have any political  power. .. I understand  exactly what he is saying.  Let the monies and the Krishnas do there thing. I was raised Catholic.  Nobody usually calls that a cult. Why? Christains have political  power in the west 

It's got a literal use and a more recent pejorative social use, which is why reputation management becomes important and you get arguments about social deviancy. When did it become a pejorative - 1960s, 70s? And that was just politics. Maybe going to back to British India and the Thuggee cult? Early Christianity probably fits well, but of course Christians won't like it becaue they feel the term delegitamises their religion - at least since the 1960s or whenever it became a pejorative term. Before that I don't know maybe they would be proud. That'll be my next research google :-)

I think Christianity, Islam and Buddhism, revolving around a single founder, are just big cults. If Buddha wasn't held to be the perfect human by a majority of his followers, there wouldn't be half the argument about all this arhat stuff. If you feel the fate of humanity depends on your founder being the true saviour then you're obliged to defeat all the rivals and cast them as social deviants - for their own good. Which is just what all this Armstrong kerfuffle is about.

To be honest with you.  I was never a big fan of his. I always had this instinctual  feeling he is lying about stuff. Then I take look at myself. Is the problem me? I dunno . I still don't use him as a dharma resource In  Anyway but that's just me

In terms of cults, it seems to come down to how each individual defines it to see what falls into that category and what does not. That seems to be where this dissonance is amongst us.

"Well, compared with the perfect being the problem is always going to be you. As purveyors of perfection will always want to remind you - for your own good :-)
I don't whether the pragmatic buddhists should be congratulated for admitting there is no realistic end to suffering, or castigated for hanging onto a religion that doesn't do what it says it does."

Stickman, what is perfection? Again, it comes down to how one defines something. Someone might think this being is perfect, whereas another has a different definition and so disagrees. If being Wholesome (see Sammaditthi Sutta for further details) is perfection, then I tend to believe the Buddha got there in the end. He wasn't in the beginning though. He was a human with unwholesome ways just like the rest of us. He just provides a way to go from one end of the spectrum to the other. He doesn't command one to do so. He invited others to question and investigate themselves. Does the Dharma not provide a realistic way to end suffering? Is this first hand knowledge or something you researched? From my experience, with how little it might be compared to some others on this forum, I am finding the dharma does provide a means to reduce ones suffering. I haven't reached the end so I can't speak on fully ending suffering. However, if it's already reducing my suffering as much as it has with where I am at now, who I am to question what the end might be like? 

https://www.dharmaoverground.org/discussion/-/message_boards/message/33089140#_com_liferay_message_boards_web_portlet_MBPortlet_message_33212232

"perfection, then I tend to believe the Buddha got there in the end."

Yes!  He got there at the end! He did talk about Pari-nibbana being the absolute freedom, the absolute perfection of not being. I doubt he was referring to being a smiling catatonic as the perfection  

Jesus and his apostles were a cult of their time! Sitting around a table and drinking wine while their master was washing their feet! Strange bunch!  

​​​​​​​Wanna have your kid join them??! 

Ok folks!

The guy had all those experiences he claimed. He realised that having students crave those was wrong and leading to nothing but stronger ignorance. Then one day he has a hard on when he met the woman he now wants children with! He claimed stuff as absolute. Now he realises all this claiming is but farts in the wind. So he came out of the closet. He is free at last. ​Rejoice people! Rejoice!

I think there are many other ways by bringing your doubts of teachers attainments to public attention other then by starting a YouTube account and making it a public witch hunt. I feel like the channel was made in bad taste and petty, even if you had a point, you have lost credibility after you make personal attacks towards many teachers and then claiming you some how have got a greater understanding of things. Wow, talk about shooting yourself in the foot.

Nothing wrong with reduction of suffering.

Daniel and Delson are back at it on the Guru Viking podcast:

Ep292: Dharma Reunited - Daniel Ingram and Delson Armstrong 2
​​​​​​​
"Daniel offers his response to Delson’s recent renunciations, warns about the power of self hypnosis, and explains why it is so common for people to revise their enlightenment claims. Delson considers how it was that he mistook the nature of his spiritual achievements, considers the impact of his renunciation on his practice community and students, and looks ahead to his own future as a teacher and guide.Daniel and Delson address criticisms they have both received for their revisions of important Buddhist doctrines such as the 4 path model of awakening, comment on gatekeeping and fundamentalism in Buddhism, and consider whether advances in contemplative neuroscience may pose a serious threat to traditional religions and their institutions."

Woah !!! Let's go 

​​​​​​​

This was a good interview. The discussion on self hypnosis was a must watch, as fabrication of an enlightened self is so common. Shows it's never too late to make a realization and be honest with yourself, and your peers. You never know if you'll pass the hotty in the hottub test, if you've never been in a hottub. 

I haven't finished it yet but I totally agree the self hypnosis aspect of it is a super important thing for people to hear.

I like the part where Guru asks "What about if you two actually didn't get it and the models are true?" Ha! 

​​​​​​​Am I really awakened? Oh shit!  

As a long time Rune Souper it's great to see Daniel reference some of Gordon's ideas. I've seen it in a couple shows now.

*Cough* they should really do a show together at some point *Cough* I think multiple members of both communities would get a lot out of it *Cough* I really suspect that particular magical current might get a lot out of the maps and A&P's and A&P's and UFO's and y'know *Cough*

Ohh, this is probably useless, I'll just email Gordon.  

Really great discussion on the tenderness of the heart and vulnerability in the path vs dogged clinging to ideals of perfectionism. 

This is the work of the later paths... It's all about that kind of humanity. 

The Path: It breaks your heart and then breaks your self. 

Yes, I liked that too, and I was surprised, in a way, by how little consideration either of them gave to it.

Delson's answer was about how he felt he had let someone down by not being the kind of Arhat that he first said he was, but he did not address the question of whether that could be due to a failure to obtain Arhatship.

Daniel's answer was \more on point. I really liked many things that Daniel said in this conversation, but this response, I felt, missed the mark in a problematic way. The fetter models are models of the internal experience of life. They model permanent changes in what it feels like to walk through a park, meet an angry person, or spend time in a hot tub with a hottie. Daniel's maps, on the other hand, are, in some uses, a list of isolated experiences. If you have this type of experience, then that type of experience, followed by this other type of experience, you are, by definition, at location X.  The experiences are what is being measured in the scanner: cessations, jhanas, nirodha samapatti, etc. But if your argument is that the attainment is not measured by events (discrete experiences) but rather lasting change, then scanners don't help. What you would need is more like an ambulatory scanner that you could wear for a year and that would pick up greed, aversion, restlessness, etc.  I call this problematic because Daniel is essentially saying that if monastics and academics were to agree to his definition of attainments (a series of events) then they would see he was right. But as the argument is about the definition, Daniels response constitutes petitio principii.

This is particularly relevant because Delson went through the scanner and, if I remember correctly, ticked the boxes for nirodha samapatti which Daniel has indicated as a map signpost for anagami. But Delson has specifically stated that he does not have the attributes of an anagami in the fetter model. I like Delson. He seems sincere. He is clearly a talented meditator. Also, things that Delson has said recently, including in the "leaked" video, had the hallmarks of suffering. In the overall, he does not appear to me to be happy, or even comfortable, in his own skin. That's just my subjective judgment but, when I see him talk, my heart goes out to him. I want to tell him that things will be OK (and I really think they will be, btw).

Of course, a counter-argument might be to say that being an anagami or an arhat does not mean that you look comfortable in your own skin and that you are free of desire and regrets and act skilfully. But that brings us back where we started. The results from the scanners have not brought us forward one centimeter. 

Martin great post. 

I was always suspicious of the scanner situation... Do we know what they were measuring was Nirodha? Do those researchers really know? Y'know what I mean? I was always a bit fishy about that. I remember hearing them talk about it and it sounded more like cessations perhaps. 

When I see Delson I see somebody "trapped" in the path. He's deep enough in where things really need to be about getting very soft, very heart broken and that part of it can be super difficult if you're not used to that kind of practice. 

​​​​​​​He's also obviously been through tough stuff personally with all this. I feel like he needs to go sit on a beach and drink cocktails for a few weeks. Maybe a salsa class or some punk rock might do him a lot of good. 

I sat in on a session at a Buddhist Geeks conference on fMRI being used in analyzing meditators, and it became obvious that NO, there was no proof that what was assumed to be measured was, in fact, what was being measured. Also, at that time, the resolution of the systems, the best ones, was on the order of one square millimeter. Huge when trying to get results from the human brain.

Shizen Young and David Vago were the presenters.

This got me thinking a lot. On one hand, I asked myself if technology can ever capture the sort of details necessary to make discernments on where someone may be on the path. I then contemplated on what such requirements might look like

I am not all all familiar with medical devices and what they capture so my knowledge is quite limited in that field. I would think you would have to be able to run a continuous monitoring that can capture when the mind registers information across all sense organs, when the mind labels it, and then when one fabricates (speech, verbal, mental). Would the technology be able to capture if the intention is colored with one of the three poisions? Would it be able to accurately capture what change the individual seeks when they fabricate?

​​​​​​​So on and so on.. right now i personally think technology will never be able to accurately show such things and only Mind can know Mind

Much of that vid and this thread in general really remind me of Dogen's Flowers in the Sky. Maybe that's just me, as I've grown quite fond of it in recent years. But, to paraphrase terribly, it juxtaposes the clarity of accepting traditional Buddhist dharma teachings as truth with that of momentary material conditions and perceptions, through metaphors like having cataracts and the optionality of getting it removed. I'd go read it again now before commenting further but am sort of displaced for the extended moment and I'm not crazy about the translation I can find online.

This was indeed the best part of the interview, guru hit the nail on the head.

I also like the non answer that followed.the emperor has no clothes indeed. oh shit

not to criticise, but in my experience, the desire to telegraph, more or less subtly, how deeply one is enlightened is just a developmental phase, everybody go through this.
some like to shout from the mountaintops, other just like to throw subtle hints around but it is the same thing really.
some go through this with more drama, and some with less.

ultimately it blows over in couple of years, decades, lifetimes, and life goes on..
chop wood, carry water and that kind of stuff.

It's worth keeping in mind that, if nobody did that, nobody else would try for enlightenment. Basically, somebody says, "I did this practice, and it was totally worth it," and then other people say, "I want to try that too." If everyone kept quiet about the benefits of meditation, the practice would disappear. In fact, that has happened in various places. Reporting the benefits of meditation, which often takes the form of claiming specific attainments, can be seen as a way of paying forward the debt of gratitude to those who shared their experiences before us. 

The ten fetter model, anagami/arhat and nirodha samapatti...

I really wonder why that even gets brought up still. 

Not only do many if not most modern pragmatic practitioners agree that the ten fetter model doesn't work out in practice after 2nd path, but basically all of tibetan buddhism and zen also seems to hold the opinion that deconstructing subject/object at the, ha, core does not lead to the kind emotional perfection/ limited emotional spectrum in the way the ten fetter model predicts. But for those traditions it's cool as long as they don't use 4 path model terminology? I personally would not want to bother with zen no-maps or tibetan bumhi maps when talking about my practice, thank you very much.

So if, after a third insight cycle (or the 34853th in the Kenneth Folk tradition, where you start going through many small cycles after 2nd before you ever hit 3rd) there suddenly is direct perception of sensations knowing themselves, something wich I have yet to read 2nd path people reporting as frequently popping up in their everyday life, if the path shifts to somehow now being about resolving something about all of sensate reality instead of being about sitting on your ass and getting jhanas and fruitions, if you can get NS, but still can get angry and https://youtu.be/DoQlfa1q97o?

and if, after further practice, some last switch flipps and subject/object doesn't arise again, ever

and if you specify what exactly you mean by third or fourth path, or opt out of the definition game alltogether for the time being (as Daniel and Delson do, respectively)

how is that really a problem or hard to understand? 

Theravada maps have a lot of good things to them. The ten fetter model just does not seem to hold up to reality testing. I really, really wonder how much dancing about that one point there is in the dharma world.
We need better science to settle that point. Obviously, because being as clear as can be about these things is not enough, we're still debating adherence to the frickin ten fetter model.

And can someone explain why neuroscience on NS is weird and sounds rather like cessation? NS is a particular kind of cessation with a very different set up and afterglow, but you're offline in both regular cessation and the cessation attainment (nirodha and nirodha samapatti). 

Reading this through again let me say that I am talking in a conversational tone here, and not in some accusatory let's get all up in flames about this tone. 
I just really, really wonder about these things when I read some of the posts above. 


Btw, second that about the benefits of claiming attainments and being open about it to keep transmitting the dharma and telling people what is possible. 

I thought the NS research was kind of sus. How did the researchers know what they were measuring other than taking Delson's word for it. With all that has transpired it's clear that Delson may not be the most rigorous phenomenologist. That kind of phenomenology is obviously difficult so no shade intended but it is worth stating: The general context of the research should have been much broader and should have measured a number of meditators who claim NS. 

---

Maps and models are super useful for a meditator in the context of impermanence. 

Once things are believed to be permanent, substantial and occuring in relation to a fixed sense of self then our maps and models are by definition neurotic.

Maps and models are ... thinking  

yes you can get angry ... or rather the anger happens and also there is seeing that its all gone and there is but wonder and stuff just is ... anger is part of the 6 Realm world and mind getting sucked in is very natural I find. However, its also very natural for an awakened mind to effortlessly sees all the components happening in the mind-body as such anger arises-passes. But to be more to the point; the body sensations really are the main give away that shit has hit the fan and stuff is going out of proportions But yeah its mind-body as in fact I have no way of finding out if this body or this mind is real. 

Thinking out loud.

The fetter of 'mana' is often misunderstood as taking social positions of superiority. It is better understood as a latent tendency or push/compulsion for taking mental positions of superiority, equality, as well as inferiority - from which emerges social positions. And social positions are just the grossest form of this latent tendency. Someone who takes the social position - "Hey man I am just like you" -may also be compelled by the fetter of mana to do so.

We as human beings are also capable of cringing vicariously . We see someone taking a social position and we inwardly cringe. Its a vicarious cringing. Then we imagine that we live inside that dude's head and know what is going on in there. 

The desire to share may very well be a developmental phase for some people I am sure. For others its a sense of duty. An investment made with non-tangible, uncertain, and mostly invisible returns.

Bahiya, all studies trying to find neural correlates of mediation hinge on correlating something some measuring device records with some thing some practitioner reports about what went on in experience. 

As for the "should" of number of subjects, I don't doubt that Laukkonen and his team would have liked to do just that, but people who claim to be able to NS with that kind of timing precision aren't all that abundant and research grants limit the time and participants that can be measured with the relevant measuring tech.

I think studies like that are called pilot studies. First forays into a field, in the explitit hope that other labs replicate the set up, to see if they come to similar or different data sets. Probablity increases if many labs replicate findings. 

So there is one dude and his claim to timed NS, and enough money to put some trodes on that one dudes head, and he is recorded doing everyday stuff, sleeping and doing what he says is NS. It's totally cool and, I think, necessary to NOT go from there to some abstract concept of "proof", but how likely (likelihood being a big thing in evidence based science, as the latter doesn't, by definition, deal in certitude, ever) is that Delson did something else while being in what he called NS?

Let's assume it was just a garden variety cessation that he just happens to be able to time for about 90 minutes duration. Ok. How many varieties of cessation do you know that, in whatever Buddhist mind training context, even come with the idea of mastery of training resulting in the ability to resolve for specific duration? My knowledge is limited, but only NS comes to my mind. If he is the one person who can just resolve to have 90 minute graden variety cessations, ok, cool. Interesting data point. There seem to be specific correlates to cessations in brain wave activity (the alpha band thing) that another study also reported that, to my knowledge, showed up in the Delson NS pilot study. So bare minimum seems that he can do timed cessations of 90 minute length. Again, from what I know of mediation tech, that quacks like a cessation attainment duck. To be further examined once the taxonomy database about cessation attainment ducks grows.

Is any of this proof? No. It's early science and any number of things can happen with further research. And please don't mistake the above for some huge sympathy for Delson as a person. I find him an extremely difficult character in the Dharma teacher world and I am quite reserved, let's say,  as to what I project regarding his motivation and reasoning and how skillfuly and laudable the whole marketing of his is. 

But I don't consider the argument that "he is not that good about phenomenology" to have much weight here either, because NS is quite cleary defined and see above. Scepticism is warranted with all early studies, and even with endlessly replicated studies, because the paradigm might be flawed. See the triune brain idea and how that bullshit still lingers in science, thirty years after the refutation of that whole idea of brain structuring. 

But in this case, I don't see much that makes me doubt these early studies. Can it be totally dismissed that there is fakery on Delson's part or some other mistake in a pilot study? No, of course not. But as these studies go, I don't see anything suspect in it so far. A technical skill and a spiritual ideal about the whole path might invoke quite different parts of the psychology of an individual. You might really want your ideal of arhatship to pan out and have all sorts of data points that seem to check those boxes for as long as you are mostly engaged in certain social circles, and suddenly have many data points to the contrary when suddenly having again to "deal with assholes", but is that really enough reason go globally ad hominem on the person regarding a technical skill that doesn't have anything riding on it in terms or proving your arhat status?

Well maybe, especially with that whole messy TWIM ethics. 

But really all that likely, given that it can be assumed that Laukkonen and his team don't want to produce an easily assailable bullshit study and ruin their reputation as scientists? I personally don't think so. The overall likelyhood of that NS study being flawed just doesn't seem to be very big to me just because it's Delson Armstrong who is the subject. 

If it quacks like a cessation attainment duck, for the time being, it seems likely that we can treat it as a cessation attainment duck, at these early stages of cessation attainment duck taxonomy, where people still go out with nets and collect indivdual alleged ducks, look at feather color patterns and number of vertebrae, beak length, etc. and not even have a large set of such catches to compare to the holotype yet and so come up with a resonably big enough data set to truly define the taxon yet apart from what old scriptures say about the cessation attainment ducks of yore. 

Even if I personally don't trust the man who produced the holotype cessation attainment duck as a person and teacher one. tiny. bit. 

Perhaps so. If this area of research progresses I may reconsider. Maybe a deeper investigation of the research in question might change my mind. 

I feel at present uncertain regarding the measurement itself. What was being measured, how it was measured, how what was measured relates to what was being measured. Until there's more research or I get around to trying to measure these things myself im just not sure. I don't know if I find it compelling as of yet. This is likely my own ignorance of course. 
​​​​​
After my first few, cessations just became brain sneezes. Imagine the horror of a sneeze that lasted 90 minutes. I wouldn't wish it on my vilest enemies. This makes me sound like Papa. Papa is most wise.

"Uncertain...." He says. He is frustrating like that. 

I'm not necessarily dismissive of the research but I am ignorant of what it's trying to tell me. Once again I just don't know if I find it compelling and thus perhaps I'm not engaging with it earnestly enough. 

Examples of things that might interest me more would be the measurement of vagal tone and the electro magnetism of the heart in practitioners who've attained to different paths. And how the relationship between different regions of the brain changes throughout the paths. 

Purely intuitively I suspect there's more to be gained from studying that. But I'm also not doing these kinds of studies so my opinion on the matter isn't really worth much and I appreciate the necessity for pilot studies in paving the way forward for further investigations. 

You know Bahiya, I never understood the fascination with brain scanning.

I have felt like shit!! pretty much all my life! and I worked my tail off so that I dont feel like shit ever again!

I have never needed brain scans to tell me that I feel like shit, subsequently .... I do not need brainscans to tell me that I dont feel like shit right now, nor do I need brain scans to tell me that I will never feel like shit ever again!

Honestly ... I feel this whole brain scanning exercise is for LARPers. I feel like saying ... mofos ... go toe to toe with dukkha and fuckin .... win!! you wont need this nonsense!

This shit has worked for 2 and a half millenia! It doesnt need science or psychology or psychiatry! .... The Dhamma stands on its own two feet!

The research isn't really going to be helpful for someone who has "reached the other shore", it's more for the folks still on the other side dipping their toes into the stream with apprehension and doubt. If the research shows that there's something to this stuff, those mofos might be more willing to go toe to toe with dukkha.

I'm curious though, what to do they win? Is it like Charlie Sheen winning?

Winning freedom from a slave master could be positioned as a loss of hegemony of that slave master.
​​​​​​​But then these are just words.

The fascination with brain scanning...

When you open the fridge, the fact that it actually keeps your food cold is because people studied that shit. Same with the stove that you cook your food on. Same goes for the Dharma that you got access to for no merrit of your own that ended your suffering. People studied that shit with the means of their era in order to figure stuff out and transmit usefull stuff about it to other people. Same goes for the medical system. Wich, by the way, same as the education system, is still woefully ill equipped to help people with this kind of development that eases their suffering. So what the western world needs is more scientific studies with apropriate evidence quality to change what is in the medical and psychological handbooks so people can get better education, help, care, training, etc. with all things related to the dharma. Better outcomes all round. Less suffering for more people. What does it take for the Dharma to be taught in western schools, for example? Will the existence of the DhO in its obscurity do it, or do we maybe need longterm outcome studies in a whole new field that is only just just being conceived with the help of people like Ingram, Laukkonen, etc? So let's put our thinking caps on and think for a couple of minutes. What can brainscan studies of NS do in that respect, or brainscans of mediators generally, after four decades of, essentially, wasted grant money that was thrown at fucking MBSR? Hard question indeed. 

"Many a one hath cast away his final worth when he hath cast away his servitude." - Nietzsche

Wich brings us neatly back to the small village of Three Trainings and environs. 

Shall We Take Ourselves Seriously?

Let's take one of these assertions and run it round the test track. 

Anyone reading this may feel free to answer the question though obviously I'm replying to pixel. 

Do you think that more (and better) science will lead to greater adoption of the dharma and is greater adoption of the dharma alone sufficient for the map/stage/path complex to show up in people's experience? Does increasing the amount of meditators necessarily lead to more Arhats?

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I generally agree with pixel. I think for psychological purposes it would be beneficial to have this stuff more in the mainstream. I think science could learn a lot about the structure of the identity and how the nervous system pieces that together through observing meditators. I don't know if Buddhism should be taught in school. I'm not sure how well that does in other places. I don't necessarily believe that the west should become Buddhist.

My own shtick is that the paths don't show up until you've recognized the first noble truth and thus more meditators may not necessarily mean more Arhats. It may mean when more people stumble into the right territory they know what to do about it and that they should become meditators which is admittedly a positive. I would I suppose like to see some research on like a general sample of the population who have never meditated, if they were to start, for what percentage of them does this stuff show up?

I think a lot of people see a lack of progress in meditators as a technique issue or perhaps a tradition issue and these are valid view points. I personally suspect that there's something deeper at play. That there may be a developmental requirement that facilitates the deconstruction of the self through meditation (Suzanne Cook-Greuter etc).

I don't think meditation is going to be a household tool like the fridge any time soon. Most people simply aren't interested in what we see as the benefits. People don't want to be unbound. You'd have to strap the average punter down like Malcolm McDowell in A Clockwork Orange to get them to meditate. And even if you could offer liberation in a pill, I'm not sure you'd find a market. 

Further, I meet plenty people who say they want the benefits but just won't meditate. Wanting to be enlightened isn't enough, being told enlightenment will fix xyz problems also clearly is not enough. Recognizing the inescapable horror of the human condition (first noble truth) is the bare minimum to get the meditation project off the ground as far as I understand things. 

That is a widely held opinion, but it was not true in my case. I came to meditation out of curiosity. Also, I like following simple instructions for many reps, so I didn't need to force myself. 

Interesting !! What do you think gave rise to that curiosity and what exactly were you curious about?

To be honest, I'd always been somewhat interested in spiritual matters (probably as a result of being raised by atheist scientists) but I got into meditation in a roundabout way. I became an alcoholic (mostly just out of carelessness, and not because I was particularly suffering, btw) and in the process of quitting, I noticed that there was no single continuous self that was calling the shots (literally :-) ). Addicts all have an addicted self and a sober self, something like a split personality. This lack of a continuous self was actually something I'd been aware of for a very long time, but it was made really obvious when I was addicted and then quitting. 

So I made up a theory of not-self, which I called "inexistentialism" and then one day I did an internet search for "inexistentialism" and found someone using the term as a gloss for anatta. I thought, "Wow, a whole goddammed religion that agrees with me, I've got to check this out!" Once I did check it out, I had what one retreat teacher called beginner's luck with the results. Still, it took another 14 years of slogging away before I hit pay dirt. 

Really cool. For me, this would more than qualify for what I would consider "appropriate developmental progress" for paths and stages and stuff to arise and equates to what I call "Recognition of the first noble truth".

I don't mean necessarily that people have this fully assembled, deeply articulate understanding of the nature of suffering only that something has occured to them intuitively that suggests their predominant worldview may not be entirely correct. It starts as just a suspicion and develops over years and practice into a broader understanding of suffering and I think the flavor/aesthetics/context of this first suspicion may vary widely between people but there is some kind of initiatory insight that I think is necessary for the ball to get rolling.

For me it just became increasingly obvious that the "shot calling" that was occuring wasn't seemingly actually leading anywhere and certainly didn't seem to be doing me any favors and I had intuitions about emptiness and no-self but absolutely no conscious thought about it or capacity to communicate it for a long time. 

Perhaps it's when our cognition becomes more meta, when we start, however subtly, to question ourselves, like "who is this?", "what is actually happening here?" Something like dealing with addiction makes sense to me as an initiatory point. It requires a certain amount of self-examination. Also, psychedelics and so on seem with some consistency to put people in these kinds of spaces. I largely "had to meditate" because I did loads of self-help, self-development, tantra, spiritual stuff and sort of ended up in a meta-cognitive overload type situation where the self-reflective, self-inquiring activity in my mind just became ludicrously neurotic and over-bearing---I was addicted to them. I had to find a way to undo all the nonsense I had done and seeking relief led me to meditation.
  

Yeah.

​​​​​​​My personal experience, and that of other long-term meditators that I know, says that a person needs an emotional reason to want to meditate and then to stay with it. In my case, it started out as a huge desire to obtain relief from pain in the form of work-related angst. After a while, this emotional desire to relieve angst led to overarching curiosity about what caused the angst as a way to find relief. It was the curiosity that kept me going after I realized that vipassana meditation was actually working and that it led to knowledge, self-awareness, and wisdom of the Buddhism type.

Beyond Ego Death: The Neuroscience of Cessation

This is an update on the research into cessation and niroda samapatti that is being done by a Dutch university and involved testing Delson in niroda samapatti. It provides validation of the state and a good explanation of what is occurring both during niroda (cessation) and niroda samapatti:  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mE6XbRBAtZo

I wrote a reply that got way too long.  The short version is that I would suggest sticking to "Recognizing the inescapable horror of the human condition (first noble truth) is the bare minimum to get the meditation project off the ground," which I thought was a well-worded encapsulation of an experience that is very often described, rather than broadening it to "something has occured to them intuitively that suggests their predominant worldview may not be entirely correct." The second one is so very broad that it is hard for me to imagine any human to which this would not apply. It also does not really seem relevant to my experiences in starting and deepening meditation. 

Rather than broadening the thesis statement to fit the data, we might be better off narrowing it to "for many people, recognizing the inescapable horror of the human condition (first noble truth) is the bare minimum to get the dry insight POI meditation project described by Daniel off the ground". 

It's natural to generalize our own experiences, especially when our experiences align with a majority. For example, Chris notes that many serious meditators shared his experience. I bet that, if we did a survey of pragmatic dharma practitioners, we would find a clear majority started meditating, or got serious about meditating, to fix a problem. But that does not mean that it is the only experience out there or that it constitutes a bare minimum. Consder the way most people felt about heterosexuality in the West in, say, the 1950s. Heterosexual people had an experience that appeared to be shared by everyone they knew. As a result, they concluded that this was how people were built and how sex and love worked. But it turned out that the generalization, while natural, did not account for all the experiences out there. 

If I get the time, I'll talk more about my specific experiences in starting and deepening meditation. For the moment, I'll leave it at saying that there are different experiences out there. 

Laukkonen's papers, and all that discourse around (including Shinzen, IIRC), conflates nirodha samapati and phala-samapati (extended fruition, in MCTB-speak). I've never done the former, though MCTB2 describes the enter/exit phenomenology as clearly distinct, and the tradition (Theravada) distinguishes them in many ways ("consciousness takes nibbana as object" vs. "no consciousness at all").
Once I raised the point back at Twitter, got no reply.

Sometimes the sea is just the sea, a man is just a man, a fish is just a fish, and a lazy eye is just a lazy eye.