PNSE - Discussion
So, I read in his stuff that he tested people for evidence of stress and emotion which they claimed not to be experiencing, and reported that some people felt stress and muscular tension that they didn't seem to be aware of.
Is this so, and are there other people who have found this ?
I sometimes wonder if enlightenment is simply a process of making parts of the psyche unconscious, rather than expanding consciousness (which it is often said to be). So for example losing a sense of personal agency yet still being able to perform in the world means that an individual's emotional and mental activity is still present but no longer in the direct awareness of the individual, it becoimes hidden yet is still active.
Something akin to blind sight in which someone is not conscious of things that they are actually seeing - but affecting other functions of the brain, which are to do with emotion and mental activity, instead of vision ?
Maybe this is addressed in one of the various books on contemplative neuroscience ?
Thanks for the replies. Actually I felt a bubble of gratitude for Daniel & co for all the work they have done here
Is this so, and are there other people who have found this ?
I sometimes wonder if enlightenment is simply a process of making parts of the psyche unconscious, rather than expanding consciousness (which it is often said to be). So for example losing a sense of personal agency yet still being able to perform in the world means that an individual's emotional and mental activity is still present but no longer in the direct awareness of the individual, it becoimes hidden yet is still active.
Something akin to blind sight in which someone is not conscious of things that they are actually seeing - but affecting other functions of the brain, which are to do with emotion and mental activity, instead of vision ?
Maybe this is addressed in one of the various books on contemplative neuroscience ?
Thanks for the replies. Actually I felt a bubble of gratitude for Daniel & co for all the work they have done here
@Stickman. I'm worried that my above post may come across as having more vitriol than was intended. As I said, I'm not very
familiar with his work so I can't judge it specifically; I do plan to look into it at some point though. I think the above more reflects my ongoing general frustration that awakening isn't being taking seriously as an object of study, for the most part. Clearly I believe in it, being here, with my own experiences matching those of others, as well as how they're described by Daniel, Kenneth, Ron and others.
I'm not sure about the claim about parapsychologists being on the vanguard of double blinding, which would be quite fascinating if true. I see the scientific method itself as evolving and becoming better through building collective knowledge, in much the same way as other technologies and bodies of knowledge progress. I remember as an undergraduate it struck me how randomisation was something that had to be invented. It was popularised by the Cambridge statistician R. A. Fisher in the early 20th century, where, from memory, he was doing experiments on crops. Nevertheless, it drastically improved the quality of experiments as well as the knowledge gained from them. It's always been fascinating to me that these methods don't appear out of a vacuum, but are there for a reason and due to people attempting to make things better over time. It's still happening today, with moves towards better statistical testing (e.g. less emphasis on p values), pre-registration etc.
I see issues with peer-review and problems with replication as separate. As I said above, peer-review is a kind of minimum requirement. It doesn't guarantee that a study is good, but it's kind of a first quality check; which means that studies that can't muster that are suspect. In this situation, it's very possible that there simply aren't any good, reputable journals who would be willing to take a look at something like awakening, which would render my criticisms void! With replication, it's definitely an issue in science, but that's not just true in psychology (sociologists rarely seem to conduct experiments, I think?). It's also a real problem in basic biomedical research too. I see the move towards greater replication studies, as well as the criticism that led to it, is part of the evolution of science becoming better. Pre-registration of trials will also help remove a lot of dodgy practices.
In a way that's relevant to us, a question that interest me is... well, I think we can get so caught up in this stuff that we might forget what it's like for people who aren't on the ride. How do we work together to make awakening accessible and acceptable to those people?
Apologies if I'm getting off topic from what you want to explore Stickman. The intersection of science and awakening is just a passion of mine at the moment. I'll report back when I've delved into some of his work!
familiar with his work so I can't judge it specifically; I do plan to look into it at some point though. I think the above more reflects my ongoing general frustration that awakening isn't being taking seriously as an object of study, for the most part. Clearly I believe in it, being here, with my own experiences matching those of others, as well as how they're described by Daniel, Kenneth, Ron and others.
I'm not sure about the claim about parapsychologists being on the vanguard of double blinding, which would be quite fascinating if true. I see the scientific method itself as evolving and becoming better through building collective knowledge, in much the same way as other technologies and bodies of knowledge progress. I remember as an undergraduate it struck me how randomisation was something that had to be invented. It was popularised by the Cambridge statistician R. A. Fisher in the early 20th century, where, from memory, he was doing experiments on crops. Nevertheless, it drastically improved the quality of experiments as well as the knowledge gained from them. It's always been fascinating to me that these methods don't appear out of a vacuum, but are there for a reason and due to people attempting to make things better over time. It's still happening today, with moves towards better statistical testing (e.g. less emphasis on p values), pre-registration etc.
I see issues with peer-review and problems with replication as separate. As I said above, peer-review is a kind of minimum requirement. It doesn't guarantee that a study is good, but it's kind of a first quality check; which means that studies that can't muster that are suspect. In this situation, it's very possible that there simply aren't any good, reputable journals who would be willing to take a look at something like awakening, which would render my criticisms void! With replication, it's definitely an issue in science, but that's not just true in psychology (sociologists rarely seem to conduct experiments, I think?). It's also a real problem in basic biomedical research too. I see the move towards greater replication studies, as well as the criticism that led to it, is part of the evolution of science becoming better. Pre-registration of trials will also help remove a lot of dodgy practices.
In a way that's relevant to us, a question that interest me is... well, I think we can get so caught up in this stuff that we might forget what it's like for people who aren't on the ride. How do we work together to make awakening accessible and acceptable to those people?
Apologies if I'm getting off topic from what you want to explore Stickman. The intersection of science and awakening is just a passion of mine at the moment. I'll report back when I've delved into some of his work!
Yeurgh!
When I go to the Centre for PNSE website I get a redirect telling me I have won an iPhone 7
What is the universe trying to tell me ?
When I go to the Centre for PNSE website I get a redirect telling me I have won an iPhone 7
What is the universe trying to tell me ?
We don't know if he's failed in getting people to enlightenment until we've polled the course completers, that's the bottom line.
BTW I haven't seen him pushing the Law of Attraction, which is one of the criticisms, but rather the opposite. This could be seen as denigrating the competition, or just honesty, depending.
"Something in your head gets just a little confused. -Really? How is it possible that someone is already having some glimpse of NSE? Consider that in the first few days the program consists of spending 1 hour a day watching your breath, or little more.You start to wonder if maybe you really don't understand what NSE is...But this issue is never directly addressed (a clever strategy to circumvent people's critical thinking, used by Jeffery in many other instances).These types of hints keep going on more and more during the course. It looks like everyone (as reported in the pre-recorded videos by Jeffery) is experiencing this PNSE, in different moments and degrees. So is it really that easy?"
This bit, to my eyes, conflates NSE with PNSE. I think people starting out meditating and watching the breath do often get brief moments where their sense of self goes away, which, I suppose, would in those terms be an NSE. (You can see Robert Wright mention his experience of this in one of his podcasts). And it's pretty standard to see those moments as teaching moments, isn't it ? I'd be hard put to see highlighting moments of selflessness as part of a con rather than standard way of talking about contemplative experiences. Could be wrong, but this part of the critique doesn't seem solid to me.
It also looks like the critique has it's own selection bias of just finding people for whom the course didn't work, and non-completers, which is helpful in a way, but It's probably not possible to get a clear picture of course outcomes just from the few people who talk about it on the internet. A proper survey of course takers would provide a better picture. I don't think anyone's going to do that, though
.
BTW I haven't seen him pushing the Law of Attraction, which is one of the criticisms, but rather the opposite. This could be seen as denigrating the competition, or just honesty, depending.
"Something in your head gets just a little confused. -Really? How is it possible that someone is already having some glimpse of NSE? Consider that in the first few days the program consists of spending 1 hour a day watching your breath, or little more.You start to wonder if maybe you really don't understand what NSE is...But this issue is never directly addressed (a clever strategy to circumvent people's critical thinking, used by Jeffery in many other instances).These types of hints keep going on more and more during the course. It looks like everyone (as reported in the pre-recorded videos by Jeffery) is experiencing this PNSE, in different moments and degrees. So is it really that easy?"
This bit, to my eyes, conflates NSE with PNSE. I think people starting out meditating and watching the breath do often get brief moments where their sense of self goes away, which, I suppose, would in those terms be an NSE. (You can see Robert Wright mention his experience of this in one of his podcasts). And it's pretty standard to see those moments as teaching moments, isn't it ? I'd be hard put to see highlighting moments of selflessness as part of a con rather than standard way of talking about contemplative experiences. Could be wrong, but this part of the critique doesn't seem solid to me.
It also looks like the critique has it's own selection bias of just finding people for whom the course didn't work, and non-completers, which is helpful in a way, but It's probably not possible to get a clear picture of course outcomes just from the few people who talk about it on the internet. A proper survey of course takers would provide a better picture. I don't think anyone's going to do that, though
.
Daniel, one of the people I'm working with in a Finders Course asked me to comment on what you've said here, and I thought was interesting. There's a lot to talk about in this thread, and this is a bit of a drive-by, so I apologize for that, but I'm sharing this response in case it's useful. I don't entirely agree with you, but this is something I've been thinking about for a long time, so you may find this useful.
I think what's going on with these methods is that they depend differently on unification of the mind. Culadasa's method basically says "get your mind unified in stage 8, and then show it The Truth". When that happens, the whole mind sees it as one, and can't un-see it, and that produces a dramatic transition: stream entry. Even with Culadasa's method, though, it often happens differently.
With Progress of Insight, the mind isn't unified, but the method is consistent. The method is simply to expose yourself to the truth over and over again until no part of the mind is un-accepting of it. This is why PoI has cycling—that's the repeated exposure to the truth ultimately leading to the mind completely accepting it.
Jeffery's method is quite different. His method is simply, let's get to where all of the active subminds are seeing the truth, and then try to stay there and let that penetrate the rest of the subminds. That's why when you get a temporary NSE, you're encouraged to just sit there and let it sink in. So Jeffery doesn't rely on unification or repetition, but rather on a lack of struggle.
In order for that to work, indeed you can't be too skeptical, because if you are, you will talk yourself out of NSE: the subminds that are on board with it will get too much negative feedback from the subminds that are not, and it will fall apart. This happens a lot in FC, and Jeffery's pitch on it is that it's normal and don't worry, just keep doing it, and next time take the time to sink in.
What I think we can say about these methods is that they all work, but they work differently. I think a certain percentage of Culadasa's students wind up getting to NSE Jeffery's way, and those are the ones that Culadasa describes as gradual stream entrants. The same can happen in Daniel's method, but it doesn't, because Daniel really discourages optimism.
The question to ask about Daniel's statement that you linked is this: what is the functional difference between what he thinks stream entry is and the states he thinks are not stream entry. You will notice that he doesn't say. I don't know either. I've talked to people who had gradual entries, whose experience is just like mine. So what's different about it?
I think what's going on here is that the idea of unification is a bit idealistic, and is actually quite hard to attain. Possibly you can attain it in deep meditation, but most of the time what you get is near-unification or not near unification. When someone has NSE that stabilizes into PNSE, the stable state still has subminds that are not on board with it. There is still work to do. I think this is true of most transitions, but may be more true of FC transitions.
Daniel is pitching this as a bad thing, but I don't know why. Suppose you go from feeling angsty and unhappy most of the time to feeling happy and clear most of the time, with residual stuff to mop up. This is basically how Jeffery describes the end state of the Finders Course. Why is that a bad outcome? What didn't you get that you absolutely must have and can't get by continuing to integrate?
If you look at what Daniel says about Bill Hamilton, it's easy to see that this is actually what happened to Bill. The thing is, Bill pathologized it. Instead of getting to NSE being a good result, it's a bad result, because there's something better. That seems a bit weird to me. I suppose Bill's criticism is that he got sucked into the slipstream of more than one guru because of this, and that is a real problem. One of the things I like about Jeffery is that he doesn't seem to have any time for being a guru. This is something I like about Culadasa as well, and something that I model from both of them: the practice isn't "do what I say, because I am the guru" but rather "have you tried this, and what about this? What worked for you?"
Anyway, if what Daniel said is true, then your job once you reach PNSE is to keep going. Which is what most of us seem to do anyway.
BTW, the other risk that a lot of people who get into the gatekeeping habit talk about is the risk that you will still be suffering, but won't know it. While this is sort of possible, I guess, it's generally the case that if you're suffering, you know it. You might pretend otherwise, but you know. (Also, stream entry doesn't end suffering—that's fourth path). The point is, you really can't delude yourself into believing you are not suffering. What you can do is make excuses for not doing anything about it. I think this is the real risk that Daniel may be pointing to; all I can say about it is, don't do that. If you feel like you are suffering, continue to do the work. I think Jeffery's location 4 is free of overt suffering, although I do not think it is free of conditioning, so even there there is work to do. Do the work.
I think what's going on with these methods is that they depend differently on unification of the mind. Culadasa's method basically says "get your mind unified in stage 8, and then show it The Truth". When that happens, the whole mind sees it as one, and can't un-see it, and that produces a dramatic transition: stream entry. Even with Culadasa's method, though, it often happens differently.
With Progress of Insight, the mind isn't unified, but the method is consistent. The method is simply to expose yourself to the truth over and over again until no part of the mind is un-accepting of it. This is why PoI has cycling—that's the repeated exposure to the truth ultimately leading to the mind completely accepting it.
Jeffery's method is quite different. His method is simply, let's get to where all of the active subminds are seeing the truth, and then try to stay there and let that penetrate the rest of the subminds. That's why when you get a temporary NSE, you're encouraged to just sit there and let it sink in. So Jeffery doesn't rely on unification or repetition, but rather on a lack of struggle.
In order for that to work, indeed you can't be too skeptical, because if you are, you will talk yourself out of NSE: the subminds that are on board with it will get too much negative feedback from the subminds that are not, and it will fall apart. This happens a lot in FC, and Jeffery's pitch on it is that it's normal and don't worry, just keep doing it, and next time take the time to sink in.
What I think we can say about these methods is that they all work, but they work differently. I think a certain percentage of Culadasa's students wind up getting to NSE Jeffery's way, and those are the ones that Culadasa describes as gradual stream entrants. The same can happen in Daniel's method, but it doesn't, because Daniel really discourages optimism.
The question to ask about Daniel's statement that you linked is this: what is the functional difference between what he thinks stream entry is and the states he thinks are not stream entry. You will notice that he doesn't say. I don't know either. I've talked to people who had gradual entries, whose experience is just like mine. So what's different about it?
I think what's going on here is that the idea of unification is a bit idealistic, and is actually quite hard to attain. Possibly you can attain it in deep meditation, but most of the time what you get is near-unification or not near unification. When someone has NSE that stabilizes into PNSE, the stable state still has subminds that are not on board with it. There is still work to do. I think this is true of most transitions, but may be more true of FC transitions.
Daniel is pitching this as a bad thing, but I don't know why. Suppose you go from feeling angsty and unhappy most of the time to feeling happy and clear most of the time, with residual stuff to mop up. This is basically how Jeffery describes the end state of the Finders Course. Why is that a bad outcome? What didn't you get that you absolutely must have and can't get by continuing to integrate?
If you look at what Daniel says about Bill Hamilton, it's easy to see that this is actually what happened to Bill. The thing is, Bill pathologized it. Instead of getting to NSE being a good result, it's a bad result, because there's something better. That seems a bit weird to me. I suppose Bill's criticism is that he got sucked into the slipstream of more than one guru because of this, and that is a real problem. One of the things I like about Jeffery is that he doesn't seem to have any time for being a guru. This is something I like about Culadasa as well, and something that I model from both of them: the practice isn't "do what I say, because I am the guru" but rather "have you tried this, and what about this? What worked for you?"
Anyway, if what Daniel said is true, then your job once you reach PNSE is to keep going. Which is what most of us seem to do anyway.
BTW, the other risk that a lot of people who get into the gatekeeping habit talk about is the risk that you will still be suffering, but won't know it. While this is sort of possible, I guess, it's generally the case that if you're suffering, you know it. You might pretend otherwise, but you know. (Also, stream entry doesn't end suffering—that's fourth path). The point is, you really can't delude yourself into believing you are not suffering. What you can do is make excuses for not doing anything about it. I think this is the real risk that Daniel may be pointing to; all I can say about it is, don't do that. If you feel like you are suffering, continue to do the work. I think Jeffery's location 4 is free of overt suffering, although I do not think it is free of conditioning, so even there there is work to do. Do the work.
Lemon: Daniel, one of the people I'm working with in a Finders Course asked me to comment on what you've said here, and I thought was interesting. There's a lot to talk about in this thread, and this is a bit of a drive-by, so I apologize for that, but I'm sharing this response in case it's useful. I don't entirely agree with you, but this is something I've been thinking about for a long time, so you may find this useful.
Daniel: There will be disagreement on these issues, so much is guaranteed. Practically, one will have to determine what works for them, what “works” even means, and ponder what the functional differences are between the various attitudes and opinions.
Lemon: I think what's going on with these methods is that they depend differently on unification of the mind. Culadasa's method basically says "get your mind unified in stage 8, and then show it The Truth". When that happens, the whole mind sees it as one, and can't un-see it, and that produces a dramatic transition: stream entry. Even with Culadasa's method, though, it often happens differently.
Daniel: I will leave off discussing Culadasa’s system specifically with one exception below, but will state that clearly opinions on what stream entry is and how it should perform vary widely. My standards involve defined, traditional criteria. Many contemporaries will call many things stream entry that I wouldn’t, as they don’t fully perform as stream entry should as defined by the tradition I come from. Associating Culadasa’s Stage 8 with what I would call the mature end of the A&P is reasonable, but associating it with stream entry is not, in my view. Still, as I have said, plenty will call nearly anything that feels good or has some sense of lasting change to it “stream entry” or "awakening" or make up new terms that subtly or overtly imply those.
To say, “It happens differently,” to me is simply saying, “It isn’t stream entry, but we will call it that for the sake of various ulterior motives.” Again, I believe this sort of behavior short-changes those who don’t know there is something more to be had.
Lemon: With Progress of Insight, the mind isn't unified, but the method is consistent.
Daniel: Entirely untrue. Stage by stage, various parts of the mind begin to synchronize, pulse together, converge. That is the whole point of the Progress of Insight. In Mind and Body, the first vipassana jhana, the center of attention is more clear by being somewhat unified, and can perceive thoughts as thoughts clearly. In the A&P, the center of attention is much more unified, and so it becomes very powerfully able to perceive things clearly. In Equanimity, one sits on the edge of total unification, as mind, body, space, attention, everything are about to synchronize, which is what happens at true stream entry, though one must consult the other criteria to get this right, as it is very easy to get wrong diagnostically.
Lemon: The method is simply to expose yourself to the truth over and over again until no part of the mind is un-accepting of it.
Daniel: Actually, no. It is much more than that. You might consult the section in my book called “The Seven Factors of Awakening”, found here: https://www.mctb.org/mctb2/table-of-contents/part-i-the-fundamentals/7-the-seven-factors-of-awakening/
It requires more than just exposure to the truth, as those truths show up in early insight stages, such as the Three Characteristics. Instead, it requires a very profound balancing of many positive factors of mind and a deep appreciation of those truths not just for objects but for space, attention, consciousness, etc. and even regarding qualities such as Equanimity. This is often lost on many practitioners, but it is a crucial point.
Lemon: This is why PoI has cycling—that's the repeated exposure to the truth ultimately leading to the mind completely accepting it.
Daniel: Cycles are involved in life. Life has cycles. That is the nature of life. It is more than just the POI that involves cycles. From this insight point of view, someone who believes they are not cycling either isn’t making progress in insight, or is cycling but doesn’t have the skills to recognize it. One is a sign of undeveloped practice, the other undeveloped phenomenology. I would advocate for well-developed practice and well-developed phenomenology.
Lemon: Jeffery's method is quite different. His method is simply, let's get to where all of the active subminds are seeing the truth, and then try to stay there and let that penetrate the rest of the subminds. That's why when you get a temporary NSE, you're encouraged to just sit there and let it sink in. So Jeffery doesn't rely on unification or repetition, but rather on a lack of struggle.
Daniel: Going back to the Seven Factors of Awakening, lack of struggle is cultivated explicitly in Tranquility, Concentration (which, past the first jhana, involves the dropping of nearly all applied and sustained attention), and Equanimity, but it is also cultivated in Mindfulness (noticing what is there), Investigation (noticing the truth of what is there), Energy (making effort to be present just to what is going on right then), and even Rapture (to be enraptured by what one is experiencing). One who thinks that the method is about struggle is missing much about the method done well, though cultivating the skills to clearly perceive what it going on and to cultivate those positive, present-oriented factors may involve significant work, but that is not the same as struggle, necessarily. Your characterization of insight practice shows a superficial understanding, but more than that, it seems to involve creating straw-men for rhetorical gain.
Lemon: In order for that to work, indeed you can't be too skeptical, because if you are, you will talk yourself out of NSE: the subminds that are on board with it will get too much negative feedback from the subminds that are not, and it will fall apart. This happens a lot in FC, and Jeffery's pitch on it is that it's normal and don't worry, just keep doing it, and next time take the time to sink in.
Daniel: I am not sure what you mean here, that you “can’t be too skeptical”. I also am not aware of what you mean by subminds talking things out of something. In insight practice, one cultivates positive qualities, clarity, investigation, equanimity, tranquility, being present, and is convinced of the truth of things by one’s direct own experience, with “direct” here being a synonym for “non-symbolic” in its best possible sense, in which it isn't always used.
Lemon: What I think we can say about these methods is that they all work, but they work differently. I think a certain percentage of Culadasa's students wind up getting to NSE Jeffery's way, and those are the ones that Culadasa describes as gradual stream entrants.
Daniel: Again, definitions of stream entry vary widely, and I expect stream entry to perform as traditionally described in all aspects. One of those aspects is cycles, repeat Fruitions, and all of that. I see many people getting diagnosed with stream entry that don’t meet the full criteria at all.Lemon: The same can happen in Daniel's method, but it doesn't, because Daniel really discourages optimism.
Daniel: This is not “my method”. These methods are very traditional, Theravada methods, and are clearly over two thousand years old, well-refined, well-tested, well-described in terms of how they function and what they lead to. Further, to say that I “discourage optimism” is also wildly off the mark. My notion is that these things can be done, that one can be excited by that possibility, that one should be excited that we live in such remarkable times that many of us have such amazing access to so many traditional, time-tested techniques, that we have great living masters we can study with, and that we should feel immense gratitude for these opportunities. However, I also believe in not watering insights down to such a degree that even relatively low-level though important insights get made to be much more than they are. This is not a lack of optimism, this is advocating for reasonable standards and definitions.
A few years ago, I got to talk with a trophy salesman while working in the pediatric emergency department. He said that there was a period about 10 years ago where literally every kid who participated in certain sporting events would get a large, first-place trophy, and he said that his business boomed then to a degree he had never imagined possible, but now that people were realizing that perhaps giving everyone a first-place trophy wasn’t always the best idea, his business was going back to something more normal.
In the same way, hopefully the meditation world will realize that calling every single positive stage of mind or lasting transformation “awakening”, “stream entry”, or whatever isn’t as helpful as they imagined it was.
Lemon: The question to ask about Daniel's statement that you linked is this: what is the functional difference between what he thinks stream entry is and the states he thinks are not stream entry. You will notice that he doesn't say.
Daniel: Actually, I do say, and I say with more phenomenological specificity and clarity than you are likely to see written in nearly all sources.
The places this is mentioned are many and various, but here are a few key ones, though you would have to read much more of the book to find them all: https://www.mctb.org/mctb2/table-of-contents/part-iv-insight/30-the-progress-of-insight/12-conformity/
These criteria need more of what comes later to balance them out, so must be taken in context: https://www.mctb.org/mctb2/table-of-contents/part-iv-insight/30-the-progress-of-insight/15-fruition/
This explains the Three Doors: https://www.mctb.org/mctb2/table-of-contents/part-iv-insight/31-the-three-doors/
This is key: https://www.mctb.org/mctb2/table-of-contents/part-iv-insight/32-what-was-that/This one is also: https://www.mctb.org/mctb2/table-of-contents/part-iv-insight/33-review/
This one is long, but it is important: https://www.mctb.org/mctb2/table-of-contents/part-v-awakening/37-models-of-the-stages-of-awakening/
Lemon: I don't know either.
Daniel: Yes, that is clear, and that you are aware of this lack of knowledge is heartening. If you are interested in knowing more about the tradition you think you know a lot about but really don’t seem to, take the time to read the above sections, perhaps that will give you a better idea of what you are talking about. I would then also read some of the material in the Visuddhimagga related to the POI and Stream Entry, and, in particular, check out Chapter XX of the Visuddhimagga.
Lemon: I've talked to people who had gradual entries, whose experience is just like mine. So what's different about it?
Daniel: Again, “gradual entries” that don’t performance test properly are something less than what I am talking about, so be careful about presuming that everyone means the same thing when they say “stream entry”, and realize that there are things that one can attain that perform as traditionally advertised.
Lemon: I think what's going on here is that the idea of unification is a bit idealistic, and is actually quite hard to attain
Daniel: It is unclear what you mean specifically by “here”. What tradition are you talking about?
Lemon: Possibly you can attain it in deep meditation, but most of the time what you get is near-unification or not near unification. When someone has NSE that stabilizes into PNSE, the stable state still has subminds that are not on board with it. There is still work to do. I think this is true of most transitions, but may be more true of FC transitions.
Daniel: I am still not sure what you are talking about here. Clarify?
Lemon: Daniel is pitching this as a bad thing, but I don't know why.
Daniel: I am not saying that steps that provide some sense of unification of mind are a bad thing, I am saying that overcalling the stages of unification as being more than what they are is a bad thing, and I am saying that overcalling stream entry when it doesn’t meet all the traditional criteria or lead to all the capabilities a true stream enterer is a bad thing. Each stage of insight is a good thing, which is why one would do good practices to cause them to arise, and each step in putting the pieces of the puzzle together are a good thing, and each vipassana jhana, which brings more of the mind together in clarity is a good thing. Check out one of my favorite Suttas, and notice how many times something like the phrase "unification of mind" occurs, and what is then done with that positive quality. https://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/mn/mn.111.than.html
Lemon: Suppose you go from feeling angsty and unhappy most of the time to feeling happy and clear most of the time, with residual stuff to mop up. This is basically how Jeffery describes the end state of the Finders Course. Why is that a bad outcome?
Daniel: Nobody is saying that is a bad outcome, which again is a gross mischaracterization of my points here. Jeffrey took, copied, rebranded, and resold at higher cost a bunch of techniques that are useful for cultivating positive mental and emotional qualities. Those techniques were good before they were taken, rebranded, and resold at higher cost (actually, all were freely available before they were taken into FC, so “at a new, added cost” would be more accurate), and they lead to positive benefits. Clearly, practices that people find some value in, that cultivate positive qualities of mind, that provide some degree of emotional benefit, that promote happiness, clarity, and wisdom are good. On that we all agree.
However, my problem is not with things helping, as I am all for things that help, and that the FC corporate, for-profit, borrowed material helps people is clear. It was helping people before it was taken into the FC corporate tradition, and it will help people long after the FC corporate tradition has crumbled, (presuming we take reasonable care of the planet in the meantime, etc.).
My problem is that overcalling early, beneficial, positive insights as being much more than they are shortchanges those who might just stop there and not realize that there might be vastly more than they had any idea was possible.
Lemon: What didn't you get that you absolutely must have and can't get by continuing to integrate?
Daniel: Without real stream entry, most will end up like those doing large amounts of horizontal work with the stage of Equanimity before first path, or will just end up dropping back to the A&P, Dark Night, Equanimity cycle again and again. I get emails and calls from people all the time who got something oversold to them, overcalled, and it doesn’t really perform as it should, and they eventually start to think, “Hey, wait a second, this isn’t really all that I want, this really doesn’t seem to be enough, this really isn’t all I hoped it would be,” and so start looking around for more. Some can be reached and shown that the traditional stages and paths are really doable in this lifetime, and that is true optimism, and also helpful for those who wish for those deeper, lasting levels of attainment.
Lemon: If you look at what Daniel says about Bill Hamilton, it's easy to see that this is actually what happened to Bill. The thing is, Bill pathologized it.
Daniel: No, that’s not what happened to Bill, and Bill didn’t pathologize it. Scripted, self-induced hypnotic delusion isn’t the same as real insight, as much as some people who get really good at scripting people and hypnotizing them wish it would be, though, for some purposes, the effect may be the same. That’s a key point, one of more relevance for this discussion here and now than might initially be noticed by some.
Lemon: Instead of getting to NSE being a good result, it's a bad result, because there's something better.
Daniel: No, each of the stages of insight are good results, and their cumulative work leads to even better results. Please, don’t mischaracterize my arguments as staying the stages of insight are bad.Lemon: That seems a bit weird to me.
Daniel: Again, it sounds weird because it is a straw-man argument created by someone who doesn’t really know much about Bill and doesn’t know much about the tradition he is critiquing. Yes, such absurd arguments do tend to sound weird.
Lemon: I suppose Bill's criticism is that he got sucked into the slipstream of more than one guru because of this, and that is a real problem.
Daniel: This is a familiar theme that you yourself might consider as something that can occur to people other than Bill, particularly when money, power, sex and the like are involved. Large, profitable organizations can be easily built by getting people to basic insights and calling them much more than they are and building whole paying communities around this. Sound familiar?
Lemon: One of the things I like about Jeffery is that he doesn't seem to have any time for being a guru. This is something I like about Culadasa as well, and something that I model from both of them: the practice isn't "do what I say, because I am the guru" but rather "have you tried this, and what about this? What worked for you?"
Daniel: Ha! Here we go, whose non-guru is the best non-guru. Yes, that is an old game also, which, when carefully examined, often ends up being about gurus, particularly when money is involved. Claims routinely made by cults, gurus, and the like are, “My way is the fastest! May way is the easiest! My way is the best! My way is the most modern/scientific! My way is the most ancient/authentic! My teacher has no interest in being a guru, as they said so, so they can’t be a guru, though they will take my thousands of dollars, and make amazing promises, etc.” I seem to recall some claims like that somewhere along the way. Do you?
As to concerns of, “What works for you,” these are always good concerns to have, always valuable, and to encourage reality-testing is of benefit. Still, consider that goal-post moving is widely prevalent, even within some who teach Pragmatic Dharma, and people really lap that stuff up, as they want to imagine that their First-Prize Trophy means something.
Lemon: Anyway, if what Daniel said is true, then your job once you reach PNSE is to keep going. Which is what most of us seem to do anyway.
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Daniel: Given that definitions of PNSE with the sharp, phenomenological clarity that I personally prefer are lacking, one might consider looking to other criteria that have been validated for centuries by literally hundreds of thousands of practitioners, and proceed from there.
Lemon: BTW, the other risk that a lot of people who get into the gatekeeping habit talk about is the risk that you will still be suffering, but won't know it. While this is sort of possible, I guess, it's generally the case that if you're suffering, you know it. You might pretend otherwise, but you know. (Also, stream entry doesn't end suffering—that's fourth path). The point is, you really can't delude yourself into believing you are not suffering.
Daniel: Well, that is really complicated. I have run into lots of people who has deluded themselves in profound ways.
For example, while working in an emergency department, I helped deliver the baby of a young woman who claimed she had never had sex and wasn’t pregnant, couldn’t be pregnant. She was having powerful contractions and had no sign of pain. She wouldn’t push, as she had no reason to push, she said. Her baby started getting into trouble, so she had a episiotomy that tore to her rectum, but she had no sign of pain. Her heart rate and blood pressure stayed perfectly normal. She didn’t sweat. She didn’t scream. She sat there watching the TV while her delivery happened, calm as a cucumber. When handed the baby, she said, “This can’t be my baby, as I wasn’t pregnant.”
Our capacity to fool ourselves is staggering. I could go on and on telling similar ER stories, but will stop there, as many of them are truly horrible and tragic. So, never underestimate our ability to fool ourselves; the corporations don’t, advertisers don’t, P. T. Barnum didn’t, and neither should you.
Those contributing to our fooling ourselves are not helping, in my view.
Lemon: What you can do is make excuses for not doing anything about it.
Daniel: Were it ethical, I could publish literally hundreds of emails I have gotten over more than 20 years from people who managed to delude themselves in all sorts of ways related to meditation practice and life in general. It would make a remarkable case series both psychologically and anthropologically. They contain all sorts of elements such as tribal loyalty, cult-like behavior, staggering amounts of denial and rationalization, and many other similar aspects. I believe that there is something to be said for holding the ethical and phenomenological high-ground in these situations, and thus empowering people to aim higher and see for themselves.
Lemon: I think this is the real risk that Daniel may be pointing to;
Daniel: 100% yes! Yay, concensus on this important point.
Lemon: all I can say about it is, don't do that.
Daniel: Here, at least, we are on the same page, and then it is just a question of what leads to less of that vs. more, on which we likely still disagree, I believe.
Lemon: If you feel like you are suffering, continue to do the work.
Daniel: Here, again, we agree, but would still disagree about what that work would be, what we would call things going forward, and issues of how much you should reasonably pay for that work.
Lemon: I think Jeffery's location 4 is free of overt suffering, although I do not think it is free of conditioning, so even there there is work to do. Do the work.
Daniel: If that is true, and Jeffrey is promising freedom from all suffering while alive, then either he is playing loose with the definition of “suffering”, or he is promising something even beyond what the Buddha himself promised, who still had pain and other forms of suffering while alive, and still was clear that Nibbana with Remainder was not the same as Paranibbana, and that disturbances still occurred in Nibbana with Remainder that were conditioned by being alive (see MN 121).
Best wishes to those trying to sort this out for themselves. Thanks for providing an opportunity to address these essential points.
Daniel: There will be disagreement on these issues, so much is guaranteed. Practically, one will have to determine what works for them, what “works” even means, and ponder what the functional differences are between the various attitudes and opinions.
Lemon: I think what's going on with these methods is that they depend differently on unification of the mind. Culadasa's method basically says "get your mind unified in stage 8, and then show it The Truth". When that happens, the whole mind sees it as one, and can't un-see it, and that produces a dramatic transition: stream entry. Even with Culadasa's method, though, it often happens differently.
Daniel: I will leave off discussing Culadasa’s system specifically with one exception below, but will state that clearly opinions on what stream entry is and how it should perform vary widely. My standards involve defined, traditional criteria. Many contemporaries will call many things stream entry that I wouldn’t, as they don’t fully perform as stream entry should as defined by the tradition I come from. Associating Culadasa’s Stage 8 with what I would call the mature end of the A&P is reasonable, but associating it with stream entry is not, in my view. Still, as I have said, plenty will call nearly anything that feels good or has some sense of lasting change to it “stream entry” or "awakening" or make up new terms that subtly or overtly imply those.
To say, “It happens differently,” to me is simply saying, “It isn’t stream entry, but we will call it that for the sake of various ulterior motives.” Again, I believe this sort of behavior short-changes those who don’t know there is something more to be had.
Lemon: With Progress of Insight, the mind isn't unified, but the method is consistent.
Daniel: Entirely untrue. Stage by stage, various parts of the mind begin to synchronize, pulse together, converge. That is the whole point of the Progress of Insight. In Mind and Body, the first vipassana jhana, the center of attention is more clear by being somewhat unified, and can perceive thoughts as thoughts clearly. In the A&P, the center of attention is much more unified, and so it becomes very powerfully able to perceive things clearly. In Equanimity, one sits on the edge of total unification, as mind, body, space, attention, everything are about to synchronize, which is what happens at true stream entry, though one must consult the other criteria to get this right, as it is very easy to get wrong diagnostically.
Lemon: The method is simply to expose yourself to the truth over and over again until no part of the mind is un-accepting of it.
Daniel: Actually, no. It is much more than that. You might consult the section in my book called “The Seven Factors of Awakening”, found here: https://www.mctb.org/mctb2/table-of-contents/part-i-the-fundamentals/7-the-seven-factors-of-awakening/
It requires more than just exposure to the truth, as those truths show up in early insight stages, such as the Three Characteristics. Instead, it requires a very profound balancing of many positive factors of mind and a deep appreciation of those truths not just for objects but for space, attention, consciousness, etc. and even regarding qualities such as Equanimity. This is often lost on many practitioners, but it is a crucial point.
Lemon: This is why PoI has cycling—that's the repeated exposure to the truth ultimately leading to the mind completely accepting it.
Daniel: Cycles are involved in life. Life has cycles. That is the nature of life. It is more than just the POI that involves cycles. From this insight point of view, someone who believes they are not cycling either isn’t making progress in insight, or is cycling but doesn’t have the skills to recognize it. One is a sign of undeveloped practice, the other undeveloped phenomenology. I would advocate for well-developed practice and well-developed phenomenology.
Lemon: Jeffery's method is quite different. His method is simply, let's get to where all of the active subminds are seeing the truth, and then try to stay there and let that penetrate the rest of the subminds. That's why when you get a temporary NSE, you're encouraged to just sit there and let it sink in. So Jeffery doesn't rely on unification or repetition, but rather on a lack of struggle.
Daniel: Going back to the Seven Factors of Awakening, lack of struggle is cultivated explicitly in Tranquility, Concentration (which, past the first jhana, involves the dropping of nearly all applied and sustained attention), and Equanimity, but it is also cultivated in Mindfulness (noticing what is there), Investigation (noticing the truth of what is there), Energy (making effort to be present just to what is going on right then), and even Rapture (to be enraptured by what one is experiencing). One who thinks that the method is about struggle is missing much about the method done well, though cultivating the skills to clearly perceive what it going on and to cultivate those positive, present-oriented factors may involve significant work, but that is not the same as struggle, necessarily. Your characterization of insight practice shows a superficial understanding, but more than that, it seems to involve creating straw-men for rhetorical gain.
Lemon: In order for that to work, indeed you can't be too skeptical, because if you are, you will talk yourself out of NSE: the subminds that are on board with it will get too much negative feedback from the subminds that are not, and it will fall apart. This happens a lot in FC, and Jeffery's pitch on it is that it's normal and don't worry, just keep doing it, and next time take the time to sink in.
Daniel: I am not sure what you mean here, that you “can’t be too skeptical”. I also am not aware of what you mean by subminds talking things out of something. In insight practice, one cultivates positive qualities, clarity, investigation, equanimity, tranquility, being present, and is convinced of the truth of things by one’s direct own experience, with “direct” here being a synonym for “non-symbolic” in its best possible sense, in which it isn't always used.
Lemon: What I think we can say about these methods is that they all work, but they work differently. I think a certain percentage of Culadasa's students wind up getting to NSE Jeffery's way, and those are the ones that Culadasa describes as gradual stream entrants.
Daniel: Again, definitions of stream entry vary widely, and I expect stream entry to perform as traditionally described in all aspects. One of those aspects is cycles, repeat Fruitions, and all of that. I see many people getting diagnosed with stream entry that don’t meet the full criteria at all.Lemon: The same can happen in Daniel's method, but it doesn't, because Daniel really discourages optimism.
Daniel: This is not “my method”. These methods are very traditional, Theravada methods, and are clearly over two thousand years old, well-refined, well-tested, well-described in terms of how they function and what they lead to. Further, to say that I “discourage optimism” is also wildly off the mark. My notion is that these things can be done, that one can be excited by that possibility, that one should be excited that we live in such remarkable times that many of us have such amazing access to so many traditional, time-tested techniques, that we have great living masters we can study with, and that we should feel immense gratitude for these opportunities. However, I also believe in not watering insights down to such a degree that even relatively low-level though important insights get made to be much more than they are. This is not a lack of optimism, this is advocating for reasonable standards and definitions.
A few years ago, I got to talk with a trophy salesman while working in the pediatric emergency department. He said that there was a period about 10 years ago where literally every kid who participated in certain sporting events would get a large, first-place trophy, and he said that his business boomed then to a degree he had never imagined possible, but now that people were realizing that perhaps giving everyone a first-place trophy wasn’t always the best idea, his business was going back to something more normal.
In the same way, hopefully the meditation world will realize that calling every single positive stage of mind or lasting transformation “awakening”, “stream entry”, or whatever isn’t as helpful as they imagined it was.
Lemon: The question to ask about Daniel's statement that you linked is this: what is the functional difference between what he thinks stream entry is and the states he thinks are not stream entry. You will notice that he doesn't say.
Daniel: Actually, I do say, and I say with more phenomenological specificity and clarity than you are likely to see written in nearly all sources.
The places this is mentioned are many and various, but here are a few key ones, though you would have to read much more of the book to find them all: https://www.mctb.org/mctb2/table-of-contents/part-iv-insight/30-the-progress-of-insight/12-conformity/
These criteria need more of what comes later to balance them out, so must be taken in context: https://www.mctb.org/mctb2/table-of-contents/part-iv-insight/30-the-progress-of-insight/15-fruition/
This explains the Three Doors: https://www.mctb.org/mctb2/table-of-contents/part-iv-insight/31-the-three-doors/
This is key: https://www.mctb.org/mctb2/table-of-contents/part-iv-insight/32-what-was-that/This one is also: https://www.mctb.org/mctb2/table-of-contents/part-iv-insight/33-review/
This one is long, but it is important: https://www.mctb.org/mctb2/table-of-contents/part-v-awakening/37-models-of-the-stages-of-awakening/
Lemon: I don't know either.
Daniel: Yes, that is clear, and that you are aware of this lack of knowledge is heartening. If you are interested in knowing more about the tradition you think you know a lot about but really don’t seem to, take the time to read the above sections, perhaps that will give you a better idea of what you are talking about. I would then also read some of the material in the Visuddhimagga related to the POI and Stream Entry, and, in particular, check out Chapter XX of the Visuddhimagga.
Lemon: I've talked to people who had gradual entries, whose experience is just like mine. So what's different about it?
Daniel: Again, “gradual entries” that don’t performance test properly are something less than what I am talking about, so be careful about presuming that everyone means the same thing when they say “stream entry”, and realize that there are things that one can attain that perform as traditionally advertised.
Lemon: I think what's going on here is that the idea of unification is a bit idealistic, and is actually quite hard to attain
Daniel: It is unclear what you mean specifically by “here”. What tradition are you talking about?
Lemon: Possibly you can attain it in deep meditation, but most of the time what you get is near-unification or not near unification. When someone has NSE that stabilizes into PNSE, the stable state still has subminds that are not on board with it. There is still work to do. I think this is true of most transitions, but may be more true of FC transitions.
Daniel: I am still not sure what you are talking about here. Clarify?
Lemon: Daniel is pitching this as a bad thing, but I don't know why.
Daniel: I am not saying that steps that provide some sense of unification of mind are a bad thing, I am saying that overcalling the stages of unification as being more than what they are is a bad thing, and I am saying that overcalling stream entry when it doesn’t meet all the traditional criteria or lead to all the capabilities a true stream enterer is a bad thing. Each stage of insight is a good thing, which is why one would do good practices to cause them to arise, and each step in putting the pieces of the puzzle together are a good thing, and each vipassana jhana, which brings more of the mind together in clarity is a good thing. Check out one of my favorite Suttas, and notice how many times something like the phrase "unification of mind" occurs, and what is then done with that positive quality. https://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/mn/mn.111.than.html
Lemon: Suppose you go from feeling angsty and unhappy most of the time to feeling happy and clear most of the time, with residual stuff to mop up. This is basically how Jeffery describes the end state of the Finders Course. Why is that a bad outcome?
Daniel: Nobody is saying that is a bad outcome, which again is a gross mischaracterization of my points here. Jeffrey took, copied, rebranded, and resold at higher cost a bunch of techniques that are useful for cultivating positive mental and emotional qualities. Those techniques were good before they were taken, rebranded, and resold at higher cost (actually, all were freely available before they were taken into FC, so “at a new, added cost” would be more accurate), and they lead to positive benefits. Clearly, practices that people find some value in, that cultivate positive qualities of mind, that provide some degree of emotional benefit, that promote happiness, clarity, and wisdom are good. On that we all agree.
However, my problem is not with things helping, as I am all for things that help, and that the FC corporate, for-profit, borrowed material helps people is clear. It was helping people before it was taken into the FC corporate tradition, and it will help people long after the FC corporate tradition has crumbled, (presuming we take reasonable care of the planet in the meantime, etc.).
My problem is that overcalling early, beneficial, positive insights as being much more than they are shortchanges those who might just stop there and not realize that there might be vastly more than they had any idea was possible.
Lemon: What didn't you get that you absolutely must have and can't get by continuing to integrate?
Daniel: Without real stream entry, most will end up like those doing large amounts of horizontal work with the stage of Equanimity before first path, or will just end up dropping back to the A&P, Dark Night, Equanimity cycle again and again. I get emails and calls from people all the time who got something oversold to them, overcalled, and it doesn’t really perform as it should, and they eventually start to think, “Hey, wait a second, this isn’t really all that I want, this really doesn’t seem to be enough, this really isn’t all I hoped it would be,” and so start looking around for more. Some can be reached and shown that the traditional stages and paths are really doable in this lifetime, and that is true optimism, and also helpful for those who wish for those deeper, lasting levels of attainment.
Lemon: If you look at what Daniel says about Bill Hamilton, it's easy to see that this is actually what happened to Bill. The thing is, Bill pathologized it.
Daniel: No, that’s not what happened to Bill, and Bill didn’t pathologize it. Scripted, self-induced hypnotic delusion isn’t the same as real insight, as much as some people who get really good at scripting people and hypnotizing them wish it would be, though, for some purposes, the effect may be the same. That’s a key point, one of more relevance for this discussion here and now than might initially be noticed by some.
Lemon: Instead of getting to NSE being a good result, it's a bad result, because there's something better.
Daniel: No, each of the stages of insight are good results, and their cumulative work leads to even better results. Please, don’t mischaracterize my arguments as staying the stages of insight are bad.Lemon: That seems a bit weird to me.
Daniel: Again, it sounds weird because it is a straw-man argument created by someone who doesn’t really know much about Bill and doesn’t know much about the tradition he is critiquing. Yes, such absurd arguments do tend to sound weird.
Lemon: I suppose Bill's criticism is that he got sucked into the slipstream of more than one guru because of this, and that is a real problem.
Daniel: This is a familiar theme that you yourself might consider as something that can occur to people other than Bill, particularly when money, power, sex and the like are involved. Large, profitable organizations can be easily built by getting people to basic insights and calling them much more than they are and building whole paying communities around this. Sound familiar?
Lemon: One of the things I like about Jeffery is that he doesn't seem to have any time for being a guru. This is something I like about Culadasa as well, and something that I model from both of them: the practice isn't "do what I say, because I am the guru" but rather "have you tried this, and what about this? What worked for you?"
Daniel: Ha! Here we go, whose non-guru is the best non-guru. Yes, that is an old game also, which, when carefully examined, often ends up being about gurus, particularly when money is involved. Claims routinely made by cults, gurus, and the like are, “My way is the fastest! May way is the easiest! My way is the best! My way is the most modern/scientific! My way is the most ancient/authentic! My teacher has no interest in being a guru, as they said so, so they can’t be a guru, though they will take my thousands of dollars, and make amazing promises, etc.” I seem to recall some claims like that somewhere along the way. Do you?
As to concerns of, “What works for you,” these are always good concerns to have, always valuable, and to encourage reality-testing is of benefit. Still, consider that goal-post moving is widely prevalent, even within some who teach Pragmatic Dharma, and people really lap that stuff up, as they want to imagine that their First-Prize Trophy means something.
Lemon: Anyway, if what Daniel said is true, then your job once you reach PNSE is to keep going. Which is what most of us seem to do anyway.
Lemon: BTW, the other risk that a lot of people who get into the gatekeeping habit talk about is the risk that you will still be suffering, but won't know it. While this is sort of possible, I guess, it's generally the case that if you're suffering, you know it. You might pretend otherwise, but you know. (Also, stream entry doesn't end suffering—that's fourth path). The point is, you really can't delude yourself into believing you are not suffering.
Daniel: Well, that is really complicated. I have run into lots of people who has deluded themselves in profound ways.
For example, while working in an emergency department, I helped deliver the baby of a young woman who claimed she had never had sex and wasn’t pregnant, couldn’t be pregnant. She was having powerful contractions and had no sign of pain. She wouldn’t push, as she had no reason to push, she said. Her baby started getting into trouble, so she had a episiotomy that tore to her rectum, but she had no sign of pain. Her heart rate and blood pressure stayed perfectly normal. She didn’t sweat. She didn’t scream. She sat there watching the TV while her delivery happened, calm as a cucumber. When handed the baby, she said, “This can’t be my baby, as I wasn’t pregnant.”
Our capacity to fool ourselves is staggering. I could go on and on telling similar ER stories, but will stop there, as many of them are truly horrible and tragic. So, never underestimate our ability to fool ourselves; the corporations don’t, advertisers don’t, P. T. Barnum didn’t, and neither should you.
Those contributing to our fooling ourselves are not helping, in my view.
Lemon: What you can do is make excuses for not doing anything about it.
Daniel: Were it ethical, I could publish literally hundreds of emails I have gotten over more than 20 years from people who managed to delude themselves in all sorts of ways related to meditation practice and life in general. It would make a remarkable case series both psychologically and anthropologically. They contain all sorts of elements such as tribal loyalty, cult-like behavior, staggering amounts of denial and rationalization, and many other similar aspects. I believe that there is something to be said for holding the ethical and phenomenological high-ground in these situations, and thus empowering people to aim higher and see for themselves.
Lemon: I think this is the real risk that Daniel may be pointing to;
Daniel: 100% yes! Yay, concensus on this important point.
Lemon: all I can say about it is, don't do that.
Daniel: Here, at least, we are on the same page, and then it is just a question of what leads to less of that vs. more, on which we likely still disagree, I believe.
Lemon: If you feel like you are suffering, continue to do the work.
Daniel: Here, again, we agree, but would still disagree about what that work would be, what we would call things going forward, and issues of how much you should reasonably pay for that work.
Lemon: I think Jeffery's location 4 is free of overt suffering, although I do not think it is free of conditioning, so even there there is work to do. Do the work.
Daniel: If that is true, and Jeffrey is promising freedom from all suffering while alive, then either he is playing loose with the definition of “suffering”, or he is promising something even beyond what the Buddha himself promised, who still had pain and other forms of suffering while alive, and still was clear that Nibbana with Remainder was not the same as Paranibbana, and that disturbances still occurred in Nibbana with Remainder that were conditioned by being alive (see MN 121).
Best wishes to those trying to sort this out for themselves. Thanks for providing an opportunity to address these essential points.
