Un-Jhanaing Everything

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Avi Craimer, modified 10 Years ago at 3/6/14 4:16 PM
Created 10 Years ago at 3/6/14 4:16 PM

Un-Jhanaing Everything

Posts: 114 Join Date: 10/29/13 Recent Posts
There is a Buddhist doctrine that I've really come to appreciate lately. I says that the anagami only clings to jhanic factors, not to anything else. This used to seem implausible to me because I thought, "I'm an anagami and I still cling to lots of things." However, recently I've had some insight that's changed my mind. I realized that although I do still cling to lots of things, upon examination everything I'm clinging to is something my mind can concentrate on enough to generate jhanic factors. As I'm doing my insight practice I'm starting to notice that everywhere I turn my attention I'm in a jhana on that thing. Anything that is too gross or too unpredictable to be jhanaized my mind just ignores, like it's totally transparent. The jhanic states are about the only things that actually seem solid and real, everything else is empty and insubstantial.

It's a challenge to come out of these automatic jhanic states because whatever I'm in jhana on seems like me/self, and to come out of jhana I have to posit some awareness that is separate from that object/self. However, this idea gives me a new understanding of the third characteristic (no self). The third characteristic at this stage could be understood as instruction to de-jhanaize everything, including those habitual identifications that awareness is almost always unconsciously absorbed in. To exit jhana you have to keep watching the object while also beginning to experience awareness as separate from that object (rather than absorbed). As I do this, I realize that the awareness that separates off from the habitual absorption in "self" is not any other thing it is just awareness. But almost immediately after it splits off, there is a tendency for it to become absorbed in something else, which then comes to seem like self. So the key may be to just keep un-jhanaing and watching the process carefully to try to identify that moment between absorption in Object A and re-absorption in some other Object B. That moment when awareness is totally unabsorbed is the moment when it is not clinging to anything as "self".

Does this make sense as an insight practice?
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Daniel M Ingram, modified 10 Years ago at 3/13/14 2:47 AM
Created 10 Years ago at 3/13/14 2:47 AM

RE: Un-Jhanaing Everything

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As you probably know, the standard dogma would say that anagamis cling not only to jhanic factors but also Restlessness and Worry, Conceit, the Last Veil of Unknowing, so it is a bit more complex than that.

However, if by Jhanic you mean solidified in some way, meaning not vipassanized, meaning not clearly comprehending the Three Characteristics of every aspect of the entire experience field naturally, then, yes, it does make sense.

Beware of positing something that could be not absorbed and not caught in things, as that is a subtle duality. May have misread you on this, but it seemed you were looking for something that could stay out of absorption.

Thoughts?
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Avi Craimer, modified 10 Years ago at 3/13/14 4:49 PM
Created 10 Years ago at 3/13/14 4:49 PM

RE: Un-Jhanaing Everything

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Thanks for your response. It clarifies things.


Daniel M. Ingram:
As you probably know, the standard dogma would say that anagamis cling not only to jhanic factors but also Restlessness and Worry, Conceit, the Last Veil of Unknowing, so it is a bit more complex than that.


I'm no expert on Buddhist doctrine so I didn't know that. That helps. It's nice for target practice so to speak. In what texts are these qualities described so that I can try to identify them in my vipassana practice?

Daniel M. Ingram:
However, if by Jhanic you mean solidified in some way, meaning not vipassanized, meaning not clearly comprehending the Three Characteristics of every aspect of the entire experience field naturally, then, yes, it does make sense.


Yes, I think that's more or less what I meant, although I was focusing specifically on the jhanas lately and it sort of came to seem like all the clinging I was aware of was jhana factor related. However, that's probably just the layer that's come into focus for me at this point.

Daniel M. Ingram:
Beware of positing something that could be not absorbed and not caught in things, as that is a subtle duality. May have misread you on this, but it seemed you were looking for something that could stay out of absorption.


Thank you for catching that, when I wrote the post I may indeed have been thinking that. The idea was that I could sort of fix my mind on some experiential moment between one absorption and the next. But of course, even if that were possible, that inter-jhanic thing would just be another experience and therefore not awareness. But is there such a thing in your experience? The last veil of unknowing perhaps emoticon
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Daniel M Ingram, modified 10 Years ago at 3/13/14 9:04 PM
Created 10 Years ago at 3/13/14 9:04 PM

RE: Un-Jhanaing Everything

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There are only the phenomena, no awareness, just qualities of space, nothing that knows them except themselves, but even that would seem to imply something more complex than what is going on. It is so shockingly straightforward, so literal, so immediate, so simple, this awareness being actually just nothing but bare transient phenomena themselves, thus being a redundant concept, an unnecessary posited extra, a false extrapolation.

As to where it is found, look up Ten Fetters: it is the standard model of Theravadan Buddhism. You can find it in lots of places that talk about the paths.
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Avi Craimer, modified 10 Years ago at 3/14/14 2:15 PM
Created 10 Years ago at 3/14/14 2:15 PM

RE: Un-Jhanaing Everything

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Daniel M. Ingram:
It is so shockingly straightforward, so literal, so immediate, so simple, this awareness being actually just nothing but bare transient phenomena themselves, thus being a redundant concept, an unnecessary posited extra, a false extrapolation.


Yet, as you point out in your book, that's only one opinion. There is the whole True Self perspective. The Tibetans talk about awareness as actually doing stuff such as imprinting the images of meditational deities in the minds of enlightened practitioners. This Vajrayana view is of course more consistent with the views of almost every other religious mystical tradition outside of Buddhism. Whether you look at Kabbalah, Hermeticism, or Vedanta, they all posit that the ineffable indescribable divine (awareness) has an effect on perceptible reality via emanation, manifestation, incarnation, prophecy, etc. Therefore, when you consider all the data from the world's contemplative traditions both in Buddhism and outside of it, the Theravada perspective that awareness is a redundant concept seems like a serious outlier. I say this with no disrespect for that tradition, or for the perspective you hold. I'm just pointing out that it can't be as straightforward as you make it sound unless we posit that a whole bunch of highly evolved people throughout history and across cultures were completely deluded.

I'd love to hear your further thoughts on the subject.
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sawfoot _, modified 10 Years ago at 3/14/14 5:25 PM
Created 10 Years ago at 3/14/14 4:54 PM

RE: Un-Jhanaing Everything

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Avi Craimer:
Daniel M. Ingram:
It is so shockingly straightforward, so literal, so immediate, so simple, this awareness being actually just nothing but bare transient phenomena themselves, thus being a redundant concept, an unnecessary posited extra, a false extrapolation.


Yet, as you point out in your book, that's only one opinion. There is the whole True Self perspective. The Tibetans talk about awareness as actually doing stuff such as imprinting the images of meditational deities in the minds of enlightened practitioners. This Vajrayana view is of course more consistent with the views of almost every other religious mystical tradition outside of Buddhism. Whether you look at Kabbalah, Hermeticism, or Vedanta, they all posit that the ineffable indescribable divine (awareness) has an effect on perceptible reality via emanation, manifestation, incarnation, prophecy, etc. Therefore, when you consider all the data from the world's contemplative traditions both in Buddhism and outside of it, the Theravada perspective that awareness is a redundant concept seems like a serious outlier. I say this with no disrespect for that tradition, or for the perspective you hold. I'm just pointing out that it can't be as straightforward as you make it sound unless we posit that a whole bunch of highly evolved people throughout history and across cultures were completely deluded.

I'd love to hear your further thoughts on the subject.


well, here are someone else's thoughts on the subject...why not posit that a whole bunch of highly evolved people throughout history and across cultures were completely deluded?! I don't see that as a strong argument. I mean, for example, such people used to think the Sun went the Earth, a lot of such people believed in God (and still do) and so on....
I suspect that you lean more towards a perennial philosophy perspective?

I don't know to what extent "awareness is a redundant concept" is an orthodox therevadan view or more Daniels take but what I like about Daniel's description is that it perhaps it gives us some help to think about what consciousness is, who and what we are...Maybe its just replacing one riddle for another, but for me seeing the basic substrate of mind as "bare transient phenomena" instead of "awareness" or True Self or whatever, is less...puzzling. And so I would happily embrace the idea that most people have been barking up the wrong tree in thinking about it. Maybe what makes it less simple is that to say that awareness is redundant goes too far, instead, perhaps we could think that bare transient phenomena of other bare transient phenomena creates a feedback loop which gives rise to our sense of awareness, which in some sense IS necessary, and is not "false" - but can lead us to mistaken assumptions (sometimes associated with particular meditative states) of seeing this extra as being the substrate, and "who we are"
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Avi Craimer, modified 10 Years ago at 3/14/14 5:46 PM
Created 10 Years ago at 3/14/14 5:37 PM

RE: Un-Jhanaing Everything

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I just finished listening to this Buddhist Geeks Podcast interview with Sally Kempton about the relation between Buddhist and Hindu Tantra. The last part (about 20min in) sheds some interesting light on this debate. The way she puts it is, that there is always a question of whether to regard that pure awareness as "emptiness" or "fullness" as no-self or as an ultimate divine self. This has been the difference between Buddhism and Vedanta since the beginning, and I suppose we are unlikely to resolve the question any time soon. I, as you may have gathered lean strongly toward the "fullness" side, although having had insight experiences, I can understand the other way of describing it as well. There is a sense in which progress of insight makes things seem less and less substantial. Yet, on the other hand, if one is open to such things, there is also a tremendous down-flow or manifestation of new realities out of the void. Of course, one could choose to ignore all such phenomena or say that they don't prove anything about the fundamental nature of awareness since this can't be experienced directly. They'd be right, yet there are lot's of things we believe based on inference and indirect evidence. Scientists believe in dark matter based on the way gravity seems to behave even though it's never been directly observed. It's not necessarily a simpler theory to believe that there is nothing but bare transient phenomena, as this requires positing everything that happens as arising completely ex nihilo without any ordering principle. That sort of view definitely doesn't withstand Occam's Razor.

However, this is getting away form my basic point. My basic point wasn't to argue in favour of the True Self/God view over the no-self view. That's probably a hopeless debate as thousands of years of history have failed to resolve it. I was simply trying to say that it's not plausible to think that the experience of non-dual consciousness/enlightenment can only be straightforwardly interpreted in one way. Clearly, different mystics in different traditions do experience enlightenment in different ways, some of which involve the idea of pure awareness/God. In other words, once achieving 4th path, it's not like there are then no options for how to understand the fundamental nature of reality, and the no-self view becomes the only possible coherent position.

Now, of course, it's always hard to argue about these things when one hasn't yet experienced them oneself. Daniel has and I haven't, or at least not as fully as him. Us not-yet-fully-enlightened folk can only rely on the testimony of those who we believe have plausibly experienced the state. Daniel's testimony is that awareness is "just nothing but bare transient phenomena themselves," and I simply was trying to balance that by pointing out that other people who plausibly have reached the same or higher levels of attainment vis-a-vis non-dual consciousness claim that awareness is something that is indescribable yet definitely real and non-redundant.
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sawfoot _, modified 10 Years ago at 3/14/14 6:06 PM
Created 10 Years ago at 3/14/14 6:04 PM

RE: Un-Jhanaing Everything

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Part of the reason of why I perhaps don't find it puzzling, is that, as an unenlightened being, I still have a sufficient sense of "bare transient phenomena", or at least that description resonates with meditative insights etc...and so it feels like it could be that simple. What I assume I lack is the clarity in seeing how the positing and false assumptions get added on, the movements of the mind that creates the layers, and so on.

Now, I have a strong naturalistic perspective which biases me to think about questions of fundamental nature of reality in a certain way (and likely think of the question quite different from you), making some views more or less coherent than others. In the naturalistic worldview, the transient experience that occurs (that "I" experience) doesn't occur ex nihilo, but occurs of the ordering principles of individual brains. And that naturalism leads me to think that thousands of years of debate is leaning strongly towards one particular view. In terms of 1st experience or perspective, there are different positions, which in some sense, are equally valid. But I suppose, in relation to your basic point (and what I am reacting to), I am suggesting that, at least in my eyes, it is entirely plausible that those kinds of experiences can be interpreted in one way.
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Dada Kind, modified 10 Years ago at 3/14/14 6:54 PM
Created 10 Years ago at 3/14/14 6:54 PM

RE: Un-Jhanaing Everything

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I'm in over my head in this discussion, but I suspect the answer can be found in some combination of the following links
http://www.dharmaoverground.org/web/guest/dharma-wiki/-/wiki/Main/MCTB%20No-self%20vs.%20True%20Self?p_r_p_185834411_title=MCTB%20No-self%20vs.%20True%20Self
http://www.dharmaoverground.org/web/guest/dharma-wiki/-/wiki/Main/MCTB%20The%20God%20Models?p_r_p_185834411_title=MCTB%20The%20God%20Models

This is one of those questions that tends to arise when Hinduism or Christianity come in contact with Buddhism. However, perhaps it should arise more when Buddhism is thinking about itself. I include this discussion here because it addresses some points that are useful for later and previous discussions. True Self and no-self are actually talking about the same thing, just from different perspectives. Each can be useful, but each is an extreme. Truly, the truth is a Middle Way between these and is indescribable, but I will try to explain it anyway in the hope that it may support actual practice. It may seem odd to put a chapter that deals with the fruits of insight practices in the middle of descriptions of the samatha jhanas, but hopefully when you read the next chapter you will understand why it falls where it does.


Buddhism also contains a strangely large number of True Self teachings, though if you told most Buddhists this they would give you a good scolding. Many of these have their origins in Hindu Vedanta and Hindu Tantra. All the talk of Buddha Nature, the Bodhisattva Vow, and that sort of thing are True Self teachings. True Self teachings point out that this “awareness” is “who we are,” but it isn’t a thing, so it is not self. They also point out that we actually are all these phenomena, rather than all of these phenomena being seen as something observed and thus not self, which they are also as they are utterly transient and not awareness. This teaching can help practitioners actually examine their reality just as it is and sort of “inhabit it” in a honest and realistic way, or it can cause them to cling to things as “self” if they misunderstand this teaching. I will try again...


Hope this helps
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Avi Craimer, modified 10 Years ago at 3/14/14 8:20 PM
Created 10 Years ago at 3/14/14 8:20 PM

RE: Un-Jhanaing Everything

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Droll Dedekind:
I'm in over my head in this discussion, but I suspect the answer can be found in some combination of the following links


Thanks Dedekind. Those areas of the book clarify Daniel's position. However, it doesn't provide an "answer" just one point of view in the debate. I don't want to pursue this further here, but I am going to write a longer post at some point soon that addresses the whole enlightenment and God question in more depth. The nutshell version is that it basically comes down to whether you think enlightenment is a one way trip to non-dual consciousness. In that case, as Daniel says, concepts like awarness/true self/God are pretty much conceptually redundant. They don't really add anything over and above phenomena manifesting and knowing themselves. On the other hand there are perspectives that say that getting to the point of non-dual consciousness is only one half of the trip, and that process of returning from non-dual consciousness to see how things manifest out of the absolute is a further stage of the spiritual journey. Then the concept of Awareness, God, or as the Zen teachings put it "The One," do some real conceptual work.
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Dada Kind, modified 10 Years ago at 3/14/14 9:19 PM
Created 10 Years ago at 3/14/14 9:16 PM

RE: Un-Jhanaing Everything

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Avi Craimer:
The nutshell version is that it basically comes down to whether you think enlightenment is a one way trip to non-dual consciousness. In that case, as Daniel says, concepts like awarness/true self/God are pretty much conceptually redundant. They don't really add anything over and above phenomena manifesting and knowing themselves..


I'm not sure I agree with your interpretation of Daniel's position (although I could be missing something)

True Self and no-self are actually talking about the same thing, just from different perspectives. Each can be useful, but each is an extreme. Truly, the truth is a Middle Way between these and is indescribable, but I will try to explain it anyway in the hope that it may support actual practice.
...
You see, as all phenomena are observed, they cannot possibly be the observer. Thus, the observer, which is awareness and not any of the phenomena pretending to be it, cannot possibly be a phenomenon and thus is not localized and doesn’t exist. This is no-self. However, all of these phenomena are actually us from the point of view of non-duality and interconnectedness, as the illusion of duality is just an illusion. When the illusion of duality permanently collapses in final awakening, all that is left is all of these phenomena, which is True Self, i.e. the lack of a separate self and thus just all of this as it is. Remember, however, that no phenomena abide for even an instant, and so are empty of permanent abiding and thus of stable existence.


EDIT:
Quoting Daniel without my own commentary seems annoying. So, it seems to me he's saying that neither noself or True Self are true per se, far from saying that either is redundant.
An Eternal Now, modified 10 Years ago at 3/15/14 2:41 AM
Created 10 Years ago at 3/15/14 2:41 AM

RE: Un-Jhanaing Everything

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The direct realization of Awareness is an important realization in my path, then later intergrated with insights into no-self and emptiness. These links might be of interest: http://awakeningtoreality.blogspot.com/2007/03/thusnesss-six-stages-of-experience.html , http://awakeningtoreality.blogspot.com.au/2011/10/zen-exploration-of-bahiya-sutta.html
Banned For waht?, modified 10 Years ago at 3/16/14 7:15 AM
Created 10 Years ago at 3/15/14 6:06 AM

RE: Un-Jhanaing Everything

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edit: my post was bs