Author: AlanChapman
Forum: Dharma Overground Discussion Forum

On 6th March 2009, approx. 9.15am, I nailed 4th path. I hope to write up the experience in detail at some point (I'm hampered by the fact I'm backpacking around the world), but 1). I thought it would be interesting to post my initial thoughts as I formed them, and 2). can anyone who has lived with 4th path for some time give me any advice? Does anyone know where I might find the instructions for enlightenment?

Below is an excerpt from an e-mail conversation with Vince:

(cont.)

Author: AlanChapman

Vince: 'the teachers I've been working with keep challenging me to see arhantship as not being the same as "being done."'

This is tricky, because it depends what is meant by 'being done'. Straight after 4th path I wrote the following:

Before enlightenment, I was distinct and separate. After enlightenment, I am distinct and whole.

That's the best way I can describe it at present. The sense of completion in a wisdom training sense is actually the wholeness of the absolute (I prefer describing it as 'wholeness' as opposed to 'non-duality'). You are complete, because that is what you are, absolutely. I think many people have confused this absolute realisation with the end result of wisdom training, when I have found that wisdom training is now MORE necessary than ever.

Author: AlanChapman

Let me explain (I think I mentioned previously how I have been having a difficult time): after 4th path, the separate sense is replaced by wholeness, but that's it; everything else remains, including all the habits, prejudices and karma that have their foundation in the separate sense. 4th path takes the feet out from under them, and it's as if they go into a panic, flapping around, cycling over and over. I've struggled with this for a while, and the question of how I am to behave now I'm enlightened has really troubled me.

I've discovered that the answer lies in wisdom training. Much like the anagami who is only aware of emptiness in realtime by turning his attention towards it, so too the arhat is only aware of the absolute truth by turning his attention towards that (which is actually the defintion of wisdom training). It sounds silly, but it's very easy to forget about the absolute by focussing on the distinct phenomena one is experiencing, no doubt again due to old habits. I'm finding that the practice of the arhat is to bring the habits, prejudices and karma that are built upon the old separate sense into the light (figuratively speaking) of the absolute. It makes them transparent and they fall away, but it seems to take some time before those habits stop surfacing for good. Integration of the absolute seems to me to be about replacing old 'separate sense' habits with new 'whole sense' behaviours. And sometimes, the quickest and fastest way to do this is to practice insight (in my case, invoking the HGA).

Author: AlanChapman

In fact, I'm convinced this is how Maharshi came up with his self-enquiry (after all, he invented it after the fact). If the arhat finds himself lost in cycling karma, look for the separate sense and it will give way to the absolute, because that separation is no longer there.

Anyway, as I said, I disagree with the notion that 4th path is the end of wisdom training; rather, 4th path is the end of searching for completion or wholeness, which is what everyone is doing, whether they are aware of it or not. Now I can go on to do anything, from raising a family to starting an organisation that teaches enlihtenment (that will eventually change the world ;)), but I will not be searching for completion or wholeness in any of those things, just as I will not be searching for completness or wholeness in tackling my old habits with wisdom training. And one final point: for the arhat - and ONLY for the arhat - ultimately enlightenment has nothing to do with wisdom training anyway!

Author: AlanChapman

Thoughts please!

P.S. I'll try and reply/participate as much as possible, but it may not be that frequent!

Author: GhostLLP

hmm.

In the words of Lama Yeshe: "An ignorant person who thinks he's enlightened is completely mentally polluted and is simply compounding the ignorance he already has. All he has to do is to check the actions of his uncontrolled mind and he'll realize he's not enlightened."

Peace
Lucas

Author: AlanChapman

Don't 'peace' me friend.

So you think I'm an 'ignorant person' who is 'completely mentally polluted'?

Well I think you and Lama Yeshe (if that is his real name) make a lovely pair of testicles.

'An ignorant person who defines the absolute in terms of the relative (i.e. a controlled mind) is completely mentally polluted and is simply compounding the ignorance he already has. All he has to do is check his own personal direct experience of enlightenment in an honest fashion and he'll realise he has no real knowledge of what he's talking about.' - Alan the Arahat.

alan, dude.. >_<

ghostllp and lama yeshe obviously mean something different than what you do by 'enlightened.'

i know you're all happy about your new attainment but getting involved in a flame war on the overground is probably not the best use for that energy. manners, man, think community and think public perception. sorry to be a nag but i really like how polite and gracious the disputes here have been recently and i dont want that to change. see the 'imagine' thread's tiff between gozen, yabaxoule, and a bit of myself for an example of what i mean. there is much more to be gained than lost in keeping the harmony.

Well... that's the 'limited emotional range' model of enlightenment blown out of the water, isn't it? I laughed so much I think I lost all my attainments!

Just because insults are indirect and in polite language, doesn't mean they're not insults. (Has anyone seen yabaxoule since he was 'politely' called a fraud?) The most 'mannered' response from everyone would be to address the interesting topic Alan has legitimately raised.

Hi Alan,
Just some quick thoughts here but more later. I went through 4th path March 7, 2008 so I can reflect on the first year a bit (what is it about March?). Once we have the wholeness, we can't keep up the old habits of choosing our experience by subtly tossing aside aspects of that wholeness we don't want to experience. The just come back and slap you. So, there are some skills to develop in staying present. In being fully with what is coming up in the body. More to it but once you get over the hump things get much easier.

-Chuck

Author: zacharius

zen masters shock students with a bamboo pole.. I hear Alan is just perfecting a radical new form of teaching -glassing the student in the face.

Author: garyrh

Hi Lucas,
In not explaining how you judge Alan as ignorant you do not post in the spirit of most the members here. It looks like you just set out to invoke a reaction. So I think an explaination or an apology would be an appropriate response now.

Author: GhostLLP

The reactions to my post seem very odd to me (especially Alan's rather grade-school response.)

An "ignorant person" in the context of that Lama Yeshe quote is simply to refer to non-enlightened beings. In other words, unless we are enlightened, it is assumed we are ignorant. This fully includes myself. I guess I always just assumed that the recognition of our ignorance was sort of "Dharma 101." This kind of terminology is not in any way meant to be insulting, and I certainly apologize for those types of reactions.

I was putting that quote out there because I think it is very important. We should be very careful as ignorant beings (again, see explanation above) to mistakenly think we are enlightened, for if we do we are in very dangerous territory. My aim was not to judge Alan as enlightened or not, but rather to say sort of "be careful."

I hope this clarifies? Again, I cannot express how sorry I am towards any who took my post as an "insult."

Peace
Lucas

Well done - every time another person "nails it" it demonstrates that there's hope for the rest of us! Way to persevere.

Thanks for sharing.

Having to continually pretend that you haven't realized anything for the sake of the 'posting community' has made most other buddhist forums too confined for discussion of anything but ignorance and dealing with a complete ignorance of the paths. It becomes tiresome and I eventually leave. There is only so much that one can discuss in that context. It is about as limiting as one can get in the context of discussions of enlightenment. ie. None of us actually 'knows' anything but a pervasive ignorance. Which is, of course, counterproductive mushroom fodder. I would also like to read some discussion of 4th path, please continue.

Oh hello thar. I'm around and still post regularly when intrigued by a topic. I've also had some very polite conversations with my "accusers" in which they were very respectful and I enjoyed the conversations greatly. Whether that means I'm still considered a fraud or not, I dunno-- but the point is that they have been kind in spite of their opinions. In fact, knowing where they're coming from pushes my practice even more, so it is not unhealthy in any way as long as it is in the open.

Alan, congrats to you.

Slightly off-topic, but relevant, I think:

I had a nice talk on the telephone with Yabaxoule yesterday and I'd like to say that I don't think he's a fraud; in fact, he's very sincere. Is he an anagami? I don't know. I wouldn't be surprised. He speaks very matter-of-factly about things an anagami would know. In any case, I don't consider myself the ultimate arbiter of other people's attainments. Actually, I called him not to evaluate him, but just to connect a little bit... OK, maybe I felt a little guilty for picking on him... but I'm glad we talked and I hope he sticks around DhO because I think we're lucky to have him.

Kenneth

This is beautifully put, Alan. The sense of being done is the most noticeable thing about arahatship. I reckon that's why the freshly-minted arahats used to walk up the the Buddha and say, "Done is what needs to be done."

But... done with what, exactly? Certainly not done with living, or learning, or integration. What's done is the sense of being separate, as you have pointed out. And since the feeling of being separate was the very thing that made your life unsatisfactory right up until the moment of enlightenment... the sense of being done jumps right out at you.

So arahatship becomes this very stable platform from which to continue the process of learning to be a human being. In a very real sense, it's a new beginning. You find yourself spiraling ever deeper into integration. Every day, the conditions of a lifetime weaken a little bit, and it becomes a little more possible to let it be. No escape. There is no escape from THIS. There is no need to escape. Having become an expert at manipulating your experience through mystical practices, you find less and less need to do so; but amazing things happen anyway.

Enlightenment is an end and a beginning. I guess everything is like that.

The Buddhists talk about sankharas or "conditioned things." Bill Hamilton once explained it to me like this:

If you wave your finger through the air, it leaves a trail, but it disappears very quickly.

Draw your finger across the surface of a pool and it leaves a trail, also ephemeral.

Draw a line in sand and it lasts a little longer, but it's still not very durable.

Draw a line with your finger in wet concrete, and you have created a very long-lasting formation.

Sankharas are like that; some of them go away almost immediately once you stop creating them. Others are much stickier.

The sense of being separate is quite ephemeral. Once you stop reinforcing it, it vanishes immediately.

Your ways of being in the world, learned over a lifetime, are more durable. Your life itself, and the body you inhabit are also sankharas. They persist until you die. Rather than thinking of sankharas as things to be replaced or gotten rid of, I'm coming to think of most of them as things to be accepted and sometimes embraced. That way, they can just do what they do, and I don't have to pretend to be in charge. It's kind of like Montessori school; you only step in if the children are being dangerous, destructive, or disruptive. The 3 D's. So I'm saving my interventions for my 3D behaviors and letting the rest be.

Author: garyrh

ditto; and can I add here every time another person "nails it" there are more of us that relize we need not question the possibility of whether this can be done.

I think it will be quite a day when rather than focusing on Enlightenment models (and exactly whether anothers self assesment is entirely accurate) a new comer will not be able to ignore the question; what have all these people achieved? Now that will motivate!

Author: AlanChapman

Thanks for the congrats everyone!

@Lucas: no need to apologise, I wasn’t offended; I just felt you might not be aware of how rude your post comes across.

@theprisonergreco: Do you really believe I responded in such a fashion simply because Lucas and the Lama ascribe to an impossible enlightenment model? Do you really believe I responded as I did because I’m all excited about being enlightened and that I wish to celebrate on the internet by exchanging insults with someone I don’t even know?

Do you think I posted my first impressions of 4th path to disrupt the virtual peace on the DhO?

@Chuck: Thanks for the advice!

@Kenneth: absolutely fantastic stuff! You say it’s a new beginning, and that’s exactly how it feels. Reading your posts fills me with an incredible excitement. Forgive me for gushing, but it feels just like the unbounded joy of existence. For the first time in my life, whatever I decide to do is done simply for itself. This is exactly how life should be.

Woohoo!

P.S. To garyrh and n8sense: it should never be a question of if, but when. So hurry up – I want to exchange notes!

Author: garyrh

Hi Alan,
If you were not offended, most in reading your post would not know this so you might want to consider how your post comes across.

Thanks for the vote of confidence.

forget about 'why' you wrote what you did, enlightenment model whatever. your post was petty and combative, indicating that you either didnt care enough about how it could come off to others, or you're ignorant about it, either of which had the same effect.

while you've been gone, we've been talking about how people are possibly marginalised and sidelined on the site. see kenneth's page 'jewish mysticism and the dho' and our subsequent thread for some of that discussion. i get private messages from some lurkers on here and i know some other frequent posters who do too. i think they would be better off just using their public voice. there are 200+ members on this board, many of whom actively read but dont post, probably for a variety of reasons but certainly not excluding fear of criticism and shyness. your response to ghostllp's cryptic non sequitur post and differing enlightenment model was to mock him, which was, as he put it, pretty grade-school, and did little to foster a spirit of openness yet much to send the message that dissenting views face derision. this is unnecessary. the way to avoid this is to keep it tactful and polite.

i was originally going to reply in a pm, but i thought better to keep it open. if anyone wants to continue this perhaps we should start another thread so this one can stick to the original topic.

There is so much wisdom, and there are so many clues to practice, in what Kenneth wrote here that I must turn to everyone and say "Did you understand what he's getting at here?"

While all the levels of attainment leading up to arahatship have value, they pale in comparison to this "new beginning" because it is stable, sufficient ("Done is what needs to be done") and yet not the end of anything but suffering. Indeed, there is the feeling that THIS is the true beginning of real life. Since the needful thing is already done, everything new that arises is simply an opportunity to embrace. Nothing need come of these opportunities, for nothing more is needed. Yet the chance to be creatively involved with the world of beings through the medium of one's body and mind is absolutely wonderful. Even if it doesn't actually work out. Even if it's painful. You continue to play so long as you live because it's "the only game there is."

Re: peoples thoughts about Alan's response, this seems a little over the top. Alan put a decent post up and then someone pulled the equivalent of punching him in the balls and then saying "peace" afterwards. Alternative model or not, ghost was clearly not interested in discussing practice and its relation to attainment and enlightenment. I probably would have responded in the same way. (although I make no claim that my response would have been as hilarious)

I'm all for keeping things polite and tactful, maybe we can do better next time, but I couldn't see this thread going any other way than the way it did. I think this situation resolved itself pretty well.

I'm curious about anyone feeling marginalised or anxious about posting; most new people with genuine interest that I've seen post here have been showered with great information.

As others have said, I think it's great to have new arahats popping up. It's a real inspiration, especially with guys like Alan who have been leaving records, instructions and advice on how to do it yourself. Any new thoughts on magickal correspondences Alan? Does arahatship lineup with what you understand of the grade of Ipsissimus? Maybe you are now able to understand one tenth of Crowley's poetry?

Author: zacharius

I'm surprised this is controversial at all, especially here. if the prevailing model is of some kind of nondualist pure insight model with no attached alterations in behavior or concentration, then what's the big deal? it's not like alan is turning water to wine or giving the sermon on the mount. he just sees what was always there to begin with. getting short glimpses of emptiness is not especially hard, and making it permanent only erases a sense of disease that most people never notice to begin with.

Kenneth, this is exactly what I experienced after doing the kasina practice for the first time - it was like being on acid (don't ask how I know that). For a couple of hours after, I felt like I was moving in syrup and could see trails whenever I moved my hands or head around.

Weird. Not pleasant or unpleasant, just....weird.

Author: AlanChapman

@theprisonergreco: ok, let’s put an end to this. I post an honest and open account of what I believe is my attainment of enlightenment. The first comment I get is that I’m ignorant and have a completely polluted mind.

If I was a lurker here, someone who is a beginner, shy, a bit unsure about my practice, why would I risk posting any of my thoughts or experiences when that’s the kind of response I would get? That if I’ve had a very profound or down right weird experience, to think that it might actually be what all the saints and sages talk about, to actually want to discuss it in an honest way, must mean I’m so ignorant I’m actually compounding my ignorance for even posting about it. There are a thousand and one shitty dharma sites out there that will tolerate and even promote such behaviour; I thought the DhO wasn’t one of them.

And please don’t suggest Lucas simply made a ‘beginners mistake’. He basically stated that I’m an idiot for believing I might actually be enlightened, that it might actually be something anyone can attain, that it isn’t that difficult, that enlightenment is not just the province of quotable lamas.

Author: AlanChapman

If you think my response to Lucas was petty and immature, I think you should read it again bearing everything I’ve just written in mind.

If only Lucas had said: ‘This lama thinks that an unordered mind is a sign of not being enlightened. Do you think the trouble you’ve had might indicate this?’ – or words to that effect – we wouldn’t be wasting our time on this crap.

It appears as if what could have been a highly insightful, beneficial and perhaps profound thread has been completely ruined by the very thing the DhO was set up to combat - and in the very first response! I thought I might have nipped that in the bud with a bit of humour (heaven forbid!), but you only seem to want to encourage such behaviour with idiot compassion.

And for the record, I get many beginners e-mailing me too, from this site and elsewhere. I don’t believe anyone is put off by my honesty; in fact, I believe they find it a virtue.

the dh.o. is in no imminent danger of becoming a mushroom-culture site. as for idiot compassion, i am encouraging no such thing. rather, i was calling you on your idiot honesty and diplomacy fail. you are an openly accomplished practitioner and established member here and your remark, no matter how flippant or funny, was demeaning and uncalled-for, particularly as it was to someone who is already at odds with many active members, judging by how unhelpful theyve found some of his replies. ghost's attempt to shut you down would probably have shut itself down had it been ignored (since no one on here openly agrees with him), or, even better, couldve been an opportunity to discuss the qualities of your arahatship and what it is and is not. 'if only lucas had said'? man if you knew thats what he meant you should have just responded as if he'd actually said it that way instead of keeping up the insult game. ghost didnt ruin your thread, he just tapped the ball loose, you were the one who threw it cross-court and i slam dunked it. while its mostly beginners im referring to in my correspondences and whom i think experience shyness and distaste for criticism, its not limited to them. example, i know an arahant who writes here sometimes but doesn't communicate the extent of his view because it might not jive well with the rest of the board. and he's probably right to hold his silence, in that this is a tact game, responses condition each other, and if one feels like he's not going to have tactful listeners then theres nothing tactful to say. so my last point: sorry for not pm-ing you in the first place and my role in keeping the off-topic going. i had no idea it would get stretched out like this.. dang, live and learn. obviously this is my last post on the matter.

back on topic, however: congratulations on your awakening. i hope working for integration will prove just as significant and meaningful as realisation must have been.

Author: xsurf

Firstly I would like to congratulate Alan on your new achievement and thank you for this valuable sharing of your personal experience.

But with regards to your newly written article on http://www.thebaptistshead.co.uk/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=385

You stated:

"This domination of the field of awareness by Emptiness is what is meant – I assume – by the saying 'Emptiness is Form', which is the realisation upon which arahatship depends. There is, then, a sense that all phenomena (including the sense of a perceiver) arise against a background of Emptiness. It might be described as seeming as if phenomena were 'blocking the view' of Emptiness; as if true seeing would occur if it weren't for all these impressions of objects in the way. From this perspective I understand the saying 'in the seeing, just the seen; in the hearing, just the heard', etc., which supposedly describes the moment-to-moment consciousness of the arahat."

However, doesn't the first sentence contradict the second? From my understanding at 4th path any slightest subtle sense of a super transcendent background emptiness vanishes into the foreground of phenomenality - including all sensations of an observer are also just that, & there is no sensation that wld block emptiness since all sensations are itself emptiness & arising on their own accord without a self/observer/doer, are self-luminous (aware where they are), empty, causal.

Again this is just my opinion, myself having not reached arhatship but is just writing based on what I've learnt and conversed with other arhats. And also I might have misunderstood what you wrote here. But from my understanding, having a background isnt nondual. I've also heard that even after an initial awakening of non-duality (which will be lost within 90 days), one would requires several cycles to refine his insight to stabilize.

Author: xsurf

(continued)

As Daniel writes on the 4th path in the Heart Sutra Model in continuation of the 3rd path, http://awakeningtoreality.blogspot.com/2007/12/heart-sutra-model-of-four-paths.html

"...Finally, arahats understand that “emptiness is form.” Nirvana is found in samsara, in the midst of the phenomenal world, as well as in the attainment of Fruition beyond the phenomenal world. This is what is meant by removing the “last veil of unknowing.” They understand that it is form that is empty, that some illusory sense of a split off peacefulness or island of imperturbability was never true or realistic refuge. All of these phenomena are already empty and always have been. This is the great cosmic punch line: all of this transience turns out to have been it all along. Not only was form empty, but emptiness was actually form. The split is gone."

-----

Anyway I'm not trying to pick a fight here and am interested to hear your comments

Author: xsurf

Ok. I just realised the article I commented on is not by Alan but your friend Duncan who claims to attain arhatship at the same time as you. LOL

Author: zacharius

well, alan, and i think you know I've got your back on most things, but there's a flip side here; and it's that if you had brushed off the guy's comment as a harmless uninformed irrelevancy instead of seeing at some kind of slight or a dread derailment of your important discussion, none of this would have happened either.

take some responsibility. other people get the blame for their insulting behavior or idiot compassion, but you don't wear your irritability and (slight) arrogance. just relax, man. sure there's no rule that arahats have to have perfect equanimity, but it can't hurt to practice it either.

@Alan: Congratulations, glad to hear you did it.

I wanted to ask you (or any Arahat) on your oppinion on this story and whether it compares to your experience or not:

Anthony de Mello was asked by his youngest son what he felt when he got enlightened.
"A fool.", he replied.
When the boy asked why, his father had replied, "Well, son, it was like going to great pains to break into a house by climbing a ladder and smashing a window and then realizing later that the door of the house was open."

Looking forward to reading the stuff you'll write over the next year and what you learned about the/your path while looking at it from the "end". Will be helpful to many.

Author: AlanChapman

Hello everyone,

Ruining the point of this thread aside, I’m actually glad of the whole experience. It’s given me a lot to think about over the last few days, and it’s not completely unrelated to the topic in hand.

Zac raised an important point here:

‘if the prevailing model is of some kind of nondualist pure insight model with no attached alterations in behavior or concentration, then what's the big deal?’

I mention in my original post that I’ve been having a tough time with 4th path, especially in terms of how I am to behave now I’m enlightened. What difference does 4th path make?

I’m no Buddhist, and I think the Buddha’s insistence on defining enlightenment in terms of compassion and non-attachment is his biggest failing (I’m no fan of the Dhammapada). But although it’s true we can’t define enlightenment in terms of behaviour or ethics, it is undoubtedly true that enlightenment – and most certainly the whole process leading up to it – does have an affect on the practitioner.

Author: AlanChapman

The absolute is not affected by the relative (which in real practical terms is the experience that Kenneth calls ‘no-dog’) but the relative IS affected by the absolute (which in real terms is the bliss, peace, compassion, and equanimity – to name but a few affects – that accompanies realisation). Yes the relative affects come and go; but I think we make a big mistake if when defining enlightenment we neglect to bear in mind that the absolute DOES affect the relative.

Morality training is seen as a separate line of development to insight, and that it is certainly possible to get enlightened without it. But I think this view is the product of viewing morality as a set of rules for how to behave in the world – which most people are guilty of, the Buddha included. How can a product of the intellect, a relative set of rules, have any relation to the absolute? It cannot.

But there is no arguing with the affects of the absolute on the relative person. These affects are relative too, so it would be falling into the same trap of religious dogma to try and list the specific affects and dictate how an enlightened person should behave. But we can as individuals observe the affects on ourselves, and determine exactly those behaviours and actions that originate as a result of our realisation, and those that are habits or behaviours that have their root in the separate sense of self. In this way, we have a morality that has its roots in the absolute, not the relative. I quite like the name Absolute Morality.

Author: AlanChapman

One thing I have noticed is that with my increasing realisations has come an increasing desire or will to bring others to the same realisation, above all other concerns. Hell, it’s why I’m even here.

As such, I failed in my interaction with Lucas. Not because of any notion of decency or set of rules written by someone millennia ago (no matter how nice, pleasant or altruistic they might be), but because I didn’t help him in his progress as my absolute morality dictates.

I should have responded to Lucas with: ‘Whenever you are ready to put practice and experience before belief, I hope that what I’ve written above will be of help to you.’

Oh, and Zac: let’s not pretend there’s anything ‘slight’ about my arrogance. I regret nothing. ;)

I appreciate quite a lot about this discussion. In the course of healing practices and the cycles of that I've noticed that when I can fully appreciate everything that went into a scar it fades away. If I'm really on top of it I am digging that pain in real time and there is no scar to begin with. I'm using physical tissue damage as an example because the same thing appears to be so in that case however I imagine that there is very likely some sort of a trace left behind that some instrument could find or some future insult could again exploit.

One key lesson I have been learning all along is that the "brutal honesty" that I have learned to apply internally is particularly out of step with almost all of peoples expectations and that is where the graduated progression from 'this thinking' to 'that thinking' comes in. It is quite often a slap in the face when I realize something and to fire off a sustained volley of realizations at someone can leave them even shocked or terrified if they aren't up to it. So, tread lightly is what I have learned in this world. On the other hand, I would like this place to continue on in a spirit that is largely anathema to that policy, just because that works sometimes too, extremely effectively.

Thanks Alan, all.

looked back in, edited to add
imho, the key is preparing the listener. The seeing, no dogs or not, have to be seeing eye dogs for those who can't see. Kind of unfortunate but it pays to be gentle. The mindset is everything and it always starts out fragile and heavy before it lightens up. You can forget that entirely unless you are continually swimming in a sea of ignorance, so there is something to be said even for that, but please not here. Even go so far as to post warnings or something of some kind if necessary.

Viewer Advisory Warning; May Contain Graphic Scenes of Everyday Enlightenment

Author: zacharius

well, don't worry. someday you will. I speak from experience.

Author: yadidb

Excellent issue Kenneth.

Goenka describes these sankharas the same way (line on water, line on sand, line on concrete) but he says that the practice eliminates sankharas after sankharas, including the deep ones, until one reaches a stage without sankharas at all.

Hi Alan, a few thoughts:

Is not the absolute and the relative the same thing? What do you feel the distinction is? We do not know of the absolute except through many hours of meditation and study-- in other words, it was conditioned through causal events. Being conditioned, it is relative. In terms of our moment to moment experience of phenomenal reality, everything is empty, transient and causal. There are no exceptions to this, including the absolute. Using those 3 identifiers is to say that everything is empty (subjective), everything is causal (objective), and everything is utterly impermanent from one moment to the next (which when juxtaposed alongside the workings of language, qualify the previous two).

I think the absolute fits better into a category of being called "alterity." To butcher it in summary: something that is neither absolute emptiness (non-existent), and also something that can exist in the here and now. A "potential," if you will. With that in mind, it would be more theoretically astute to say something along the lines of: "experience of the absolute is always a possibility lying in alterity."

What do you think?

Trent

Author: AlanChapman

@Dan Bartlett: Re. magical correspondences, I'm convinced the arahat lines up nicely with the ipssisimus. My attainment of arahatship was prophecied strictly in ipssisimus terms (symbols related to Kether or 1) almost 1.5 years ago in a series of enochian visions (the prophecy also included my marriage, before I had even met my wife!). I didn't quite understand what the visions were referring to at the time however...

Author: AlanChapman

@Julius416: I would agree with Anthony de Mello - there is certainly a degree of feeling the fool, because the realisation is one of the complete unrelatedness (if that is a word) of the absolute with anything else. (NB: I must stress that what I am about to write is true only during that realisation). Enlightenment is not the practice, not the traditions, not any of the teachings, not the jhanas, not the progress made, not the stages, not the fruitions, not emptiness in real time, and certainly not what you think an arahat is. The feeling of foolishness arises from the necessary investment in all of those things to get you to that point, only to see that they have nothing whatsoever to do with enlightenment: you've been breaking in to an open house!

I hope that makes sense, and I hope I'm not being misleading with what I've written. I'm no advocate of advaita; the advaitist (if that too is a word) is like someone who believes a virgin can lose his/her virginity through hearing a description of sex.

Author: AlanChapman

@Trent: I would have to disagree on a number of points. 1). I don't think it makes sense to say emptiness is 'non-existent', because you can experience it directly. 2). the realisation of 4th path is all about how the hours of meditation have no connection to the absolute, because they are relative (see my post above to Julius). 3). the absolute really is absolute. I wouldn't define the absolute as my realisation of it, or as the bliss, peace, etc that comes with it, as I agree with you that they are all relative phenomenon.

Are the absolute and the relative the same? In terms of speaking in a useful and understandable way about enlightenment, I would have to say categorically not. I never knew the absolute until I landed a fruition, and there are many things I can say about the absolute that I cannot about everything else, such as it is unconditioned, unlimited, whole, and so on. Experientially, it appears to me as if the relative (the world as we know it) is 'inside' the absolute; of course, this isn't strictly true. Maybe 'transcends but includes it' is a better way of describing it. But I can clearly see that the absolute is not affected by anything that occurs; but the relative is affected by my realisation of the absolute.

Perhaps a better way of understanding what I mean by 'relative' and 'absolute' might be to describe them as 'the absolutely relative' (the world) and 'the relatively absolute' (that which transcends it).

Any thoughts?

That makes complete sense to me, if I am understanding you correctly. Maybe it would help to think of it as more like summoning up the nerve to fully commit to 'undertaking the break in'.

If I may ask, how does nirodha samapatti look from your pov now. For instance, are you able to maintain it at length, enter and exit more or less at will, and how do you view the relationship between that complete cessation or 'non-state' to the manifest universe and to your own 'conditional being'. I realize describing the NS is kind of a non-starter and kind of misleading but I for one am willing to cut you as much slack as you like if you are willing to take a stab at your impressions of it. (edit-scratch that, l see from your page you are noncommittal about the NS. Thats ok.)

Congratulations natch, and I extend to you all of the typical deference which I feel due to someone with your achievements under their belt. Kudos. (edit-Given all the chatter about 'attainments' lately I thought I would add that I am willing to take people's word for their 'attainments' and deal with them on that basis. As for me, I have no attachments to such things and no special interests in 'status' of any kind. I am into "Freedom".)

Hi Alan,

For number (1): the emptiness I refer to is the emptiness "present during" the blink-out of fruition; the "no-experience." In that sense, there is nothing there because there is no experience. That's all I meant by "absolute emptiness" and "non-existence."

You say "I never knew the absolute until I landed a fruition. . ." and this is precisely the point I am debating for. The absolute is experimentally known, right? But to say that "it was always present" is a theoretical leap which ignores the very causal events that lead up to the knowing. If we have not known the absolute forever, in every single micro moment, then it literally did not exist for us at some point. We can, in hindsight, say that everything is "contained" by the absolute, and that it appears this
has always been the case; but that again is only done through thought, interpretation and specifically, language.

Language (symbolic/verbal) is by its very nature infinitely deferring and thus, ultimately, wholly and undeniably relative. This is the easiest way to see that the absolute is also completely relative. The absolute is experienced, thus it is interpreted, thus it is known through language, and thus it is just as relative as it is absolute. We can say that it "encapsulates" the relative, but it is also defined by that which it encapsulates.

'Oh, Sariputra, Form Does not Differ From the Void,
And the Void Does Not Differ From Form.
Form is Void and Void is Form;
The Same is True For Feelings,
Perceptions, Volitions and Consciousness."

Thoughts?
Trent