RE: PNSE, Am I an Arhat?

Mateusz, modified 4 Years ago at 6/6/19 6:49 AM
Created 4 Years ago at 6/5/19 3:13 PM

RE: PNSE, Am I an Arhat?

Posts: 10 Join Date: 2/26/19 Recent Posts
What would you say about my experience, Daniel?

2,5 years ago I did 20 minutes of sub-verbal mantra repetition with closed eyes (this was my first meditation/spiritual practice ever). My sense of self expanded beyond my body after that meditation, then motivated by this interesting shift I did 50 minutes 2x a day for about 10 days and, it has lead me to a state of absolutely no sense of agency, no doer, 99% reduction in self-referential thoughts, no localized self. Am I an Arhat? I see you are very into all these complicated maps, stages, all that stuff - which I think is much more related to concentration practise itself than this no-self shift. I'm not a Buddhist but isn't the claim that an Arahat which you claim to be, had completely overcome aversion? Which means that if you stop meditating right now so that your mind disunify completely and then I take a hot piece of steel and put it on your leg you would have no aversion at all? Your muscles would not react by tensing up as it's the case with aversion expressed in the body? I don't think I'm an Arhat because I still experience aversion as I described.
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Daniel M Ingram, modified 4 Years ago at 6/6/19 5:53 AM
Created 4 Years ago at 6/6/19 4:31 AM

RE: PNSE, Am I an Arhat?

Posts: 3268 Join Date: 4/20/09 Recent Posts
Dear Mateuz,

People use the word "arhat" differently, using various criteria. Use the word as you think best, but be clear in your definition of it.

As to whether or not I would call someone an arhat, many factors are relevant:

1) I don't diagnose people with paths, even stream entry, over forums, emails, etc., as I think that is just irresponsible with vastly too high an error rate for my comfort. To do this well requres long-term contact, careful conversations, a deep willingness to do the hard work that examines exactly how language is used for all sorts of concepts, relevant here being words like "agency", "localized self", etc., and to see how these things perform long-term up close and personal, and to keep a healthy sense of skepticism with a time-horizon of years, and then it is still a dangerous, imprecise business.

2) Insights are what they are and perform as they perform regardless of what some dude on a forum, such as myself, calls them.

So, if something happened and it performs a certain way, then that is what is going on. If you chose to call it some name, there will be various social and functional implications of using that language, so make your choices and accept the consequences, both good and bad.

If it performs over the long term as you wish it to and are satisfied, then no need to have some guy say it is whatever. If it doesn't, then that is a deeper issue, and figuring out the source of dissatisfaction is your business.

Best wishes.

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