Laurel Carrington:
Hello, terry, and thanks so much for the lengthy and detailed response. I recognize that your experience is different from mine, since mine did in fact unfold pretty much as I described it, probably because of the kind of practice I was doing combined with my own psychological proclivities. My first path in particular was dry insight (second as well), with no self-inquiry and not much jhana practice. This was the result. I think in the talk I mention the Burmese insight tradition that is the backdrop to my descriptions.
I do agree that once a person finishes the early paths things shift. There’s been a lot of discussion on this forum and elsewhere about the Progress of Insight map and its usefulness at all stages of the awakening process. My take is that it is extremely valuable, especially in the beginning. Some folks are concerned about the possibility of scripting one’s meditative experience to fit the maps, but I think the risk of doing so is not enough of a deterrent to using the maps wisely. Others such as yourself think the map places an unnecessary overlay on experience. That may be true once a person has seen through the illusion of self once and for all, but until that point maps help.
Again, thanks so much for your input —Laurel
aloha laurel,
Yes, mapping and playing the kazoo over the orchestra seem quite similar to me. Worse, as we know the kazoo sounds bad, but we may trust maps. Problems with maps are well known to the sufis, who have worked out the "stages" of/to enlightenment in considerable detail. The desire of people to "make progress" in spirituality corrupts their efforts.
Understanding the tao, the "way," means understanding that the sign "tao" refers to what is the unnameable and the source of all names. As the tao te ching says in its opening sentence, "The way that can be trodden is not the true way." (Literally, the line says, "tao tao not tao.") The way that can be mapped out is not the true way; the map that purports to show the way is not the true map. If there were a map, it would be christ. Or buddha. The guru, the good friend. Not symbols and signs, words and letters.
As for experience differing, we all have the three marks, so in such talks one size fits all. As for a & p and dark nights, I think suggesting that such experiences are somehow normal and common to all seekers may indeed predispose people to nightmares. Or put them off altogether. I tend to tell people meditation can't hurt. But I am talking about just sitting, and many people call their various and different spiritual exercises "meditation" of one sort or another. Of course we all have our pathologies, but they are unique to each individual. While the buddha nature is common to us all.
Seeing through the illusion of self may take years but in the event it takes no time at all. I could perhaps make sense of the "early" and "late" designations if I recognized the stages you are describing. They don't match sufi stages, or any others In the classical literature that I am familiar with. And I don't recognize them from my own experience. I keep hoping someone here can tie these things in to something I'm familiar with, at least from the classical literature. If these are strictly modern effects I am less interested, expecting that they are transient and not very significant. I tend to take a longer view of significance than many. The
yi jing has been around perhaps 4000 years; that is a map to reckon with. Astrology has a long history, a great literature, though it is perhaps a dinosaur, mostly showing great bones. Perhaps modern explorers boldly go where no one has been before. But I doubt it.
To speak of "once and for all" can be a bit tricky. Self delusion being what it is. We may imagine we are there when we are not; we may imagine we are not there when we are. In any case, if you can imagine (describe) your state, it is not nirvana; it is imaginary. Besides, one's "state," in terms of spiritual "progress" is not something to be checked on and contemplated as such: who is it who wants to know? Only ego, greedy for advancement. It is not as though one could take a wrong step, if one had no map. We can navigate by the stars - "second star to the right and straight on 'til morning" will get you where we're going.
Suppose we stretch out the concept "map" and used it to refer to any kind of spiritual guidance whatsoever, any sort of teaching. You are still depending on external authority, not inner experience. All spiritual "materials" only have value to those who recognize the territory from the description, those who have already been there and know.
Maintaining an unconventional standpoint takes constant effort; it is easy to relax and go to sleep, wake up 20 years later wondering what went wrong. If our effort fails or flags, we can be sucked back in to caring about the usual conventional nonsense. Rinzai warns us against saying "I know ch'an; I know the Way." Once we think we know we have completely lost it.
Thanks for responding to my questions.
terry
from "awareness, the perils and opportunities of reality" by anthony demello:
ADDICTIVE LOVE
The heart in love remains soft and sensitive. But when you’re hell-bent on getting this or the other thing, you become ruthless, hard, and insensitive. How can you love people when you need people? You can only use them. If I need you to make me happy, I’ve got to use you, I’ve got to manipulate you, I’ve got to find ways and means of winning you. I cannot let you be free. I can only love people when I have emptied my life of people. When I die to the need for people, then I’m right in the desert. In the beginning it feels awful, it feels lonely, but if you can take it for a while, you’ll suddenly discover that it isn’t lonely at all. It is solitude, it is aloneness, and the desert begins to flower. Then at last you’ll know what love is, what God is, what reality is. But in the beginning giving up the drug can be tough, unless you have a very keen understanding or unless you have suffered enough. It’s a great thing to have suffered. Only then can you get sick of it. You can make use of suffering to end suffering. Most people just go on suffering. That explains the conflict I sometimes have between the role of spiritual director and that of therapist. A therapist says, "Let's ease the suffering." The spiritual director says, "Let her suffer, she'll get sick of this way of relating to people and she'll finally decide to break out of this prison of emotional dependence on others." Shall I offer a palliative or remove a cancer? It's not easy to decide.
A person slams a book on the table in disgust. Let him keep slamming it on the table. Don’t pick up the book for him and tell him it’s all right. Spirituality is awareness, awareness, awareness, awareness, awareness, awareness. When your mother got angry with you, she didn’t say there was something wrong with her, she said there was something wrong with you; otherwise she wouldn’t have been angry. Well, I made the great discovery that if you are angry, Mother, there’s something wrong with you. So you’d better cope with your anger. Stay with it and cope with it. It’s not mine. Whether there’s something wrong with me or not, I’ll examine that independently of your anger. I’m not going to be influenced by your anger.
The funny thing is that when I can do this without feeling any negativity toward another, I can be quite objective about myself, too. Only a very aware person can refuse to pick up the guilt and anger, can say, “You’re having a tantrum. Too bad. I don’t feel the slightest desire to rescue you anymore, and I refuse to feel guilty.” I’m not going to hate myself for anything I’ve done. That’s what guilt is. I’m not going to give myself a bad feeling and whip myself for anything I have done, either right or wrong. I’m ready to analyze it, to watch it, and say, “Well, if I did wrong, it was in unawareness.” Nobody does wrong in awareness. That’s why theologians tell us very beautifully that Jesus could do no wrong. That makes very good sense to me, because the enlightened person can do no wrong. The enlightened person is free. Jesus was free and because he was free, he couldn't do any wrong. But because you
can do wrong, you're not free.
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