.

Try the medicine Buddha practice. It may clear things up for you. At least temporarily.

These questions can be answered all at once as they are all really the same question: there isn't consciousness in a cessation or during nirodha. Nothing is accessible at all. No sensations, no thoughts, no experiences what-so-ever. So there are no mind-created phenomena to be seen, heard, touched, tasted, smelled, or thought. To the being to which this is occurring there is no experience at all. Nothing.

EDIT: From this meditator's perspective, the questions about "subjective vs objective" experience are interesting for science, philosophy, and metaphysics but can't be answered by dharma practice.

I find the descriptions quite specific already?

During fruition and (in a phased way, Nirodha Samapatti), all subjective experience stops.  That's it.  To me, these are recognized on emergence back from the states, as sensations come back online.

What happens objectively is unknown and unknowable to the meditator, as subjective experience is the only means of "knowing" anything. 

I doubt you'll find too many meditators pondering the objective physical happenings, as trying to construct a story about what happened isn't very supportive of practice, or to put it another way, doesn't matter in the least...

Nirodha and cessation are very, very different to get into, so the access method is how one can distinguish. (That sounds funny to me, though, because it's like asking me how you can tell red from blue. I just know.)

What's the source of these questions? I'm curious.

Same question as I asked Chris: If all subjective experience stops, both in Fruition and Nirodha Samapatti, how are meditators able to distinguish between the two? And what exactly are those differences?

EDIT: Im talking only fruition here not the other two mentioned above as I have no clue what those are.

Chris can we not just say its "same as a dreamless sleep". As far as I see it in that Non-state there could be anything, EVERYTHING or absolutely NOTHING, the same way when in dreamless sleep or heavily sedated I simply have NO REMEBERANCE of it. Another good word for it is "Unconscious" utterly. As there is NO REMEBERENCE of IT of course then there is no reference, no time, no space, no me, no this and that , like why not say Dreamless Sleep Utterly Unconscious hence no experience or knowing anything about it really. As far as I can tell it could be a dirty God's joke to knock me out and quickly rape me and spit me back in as if nothing happened I mean really when you think of it  

You "know" it only when conscious again and there is this "what was that" or in case of those who already "know" this experience (those who experienced cessation more than once) then there is "knowing or comprehension" that somethings gone missing (God reference here is really explaining this well for those who never had a cessations).

Disagree?  

Yes, I disagree. There is residual consciousness during even the deepest sleep.

Oh, I see. Didn't know that. Does one get to see this in dream yoga? But then again that would be dreaming involved. How can you be aware of that deep sleep residual consciousness? Have you expereined this? Or are you using science here?

Yes. But I'd call it "cessation" and not fruition That's much more descriptive.

I have experienced this, and no, I'm not using science. Do you use science when you meditate? Would that help you on the path?

I can contribute a bit with regard to your question four. I'd say that if one can't tell the difference between the unknowing event and falling asleep, it probably wasn't a cessation. By "tell" I don't necessarily mean describe it, because it can be difficult to put it into words, but knowing for sure that there is a difference. Because it is. It isn't always clear what happens before and after, because it can be really fast and doesn't really match "normal" frames of reference, but it is definitely not anything like falling asleep. There is an abruptness in going into it. You are chrystal clear and suddenly you are somewhere else, sort of. 

Maybe there are people who think that they were in Nirodha Samapatti despite obviously talking about a state of which they were conscious? That's what I assumed, that there was due cause to be explicit about it. 

How did this start for you, if you'd like to share, and how did it deepen? I have lucid dreamless sleep sometimes but it probably isn't very deep. 

Really? We must have very different sources then. I hear it emphasized all the time. 

edit: Oh, I see that you wrote more now. I'll go back to read the rest of it.

I have mainly seen this emphasis with regard to cessations, so I really don't know. I haven't payed that much interest to Nirodha Samapatti because it's not yet accessible for me. 

I don't think it is common to have hour-long fruitions, so to me that's a very hypothetical question. I have no idea what the afterglow would be after that, and no experience (or non-experience) of Nirodha Samapatti whatsoever. 

My appologies Chris. It was not meant to sound rude or putting down. My english coloquial might not be too good. I was genuine in my question as I never thought of that being possible, to be aware throughout the entire nights sleep and all its stages, from shallow to deep sleep. This is something new Ive learned today. So basically there could also be Cessation even in this deep sleep if Cessation is to happen I assume? How can we then tell that this Cessation is not just the deepest of all the deep sleeps? just kidding here.

But no, I do not use science as such in meditation (no time for that as it gets quickly noted as Thinking).

Again my appologies if I came about as rude. Was not my intent.

Okay, here's where I think Daniel says that explicitly about fruitions. Do you have a different interpretation of that?

I mean the specific form of fruition that is a cessation, which is what Daniel refers to when he says fruition.

The way I see it, the word fruition just says that something has ripened. The word cessation specifies how that ripening culminates. 

Exactly! And here's the point: With regard to Nirodha Samapatti, look up the page on nirodha samapatti -- from where you got the quote about nirodha samapatti -- before your cited quote about Nirodha Samapatti but on the same page where you got the quote about nirodha samapatti, it says Feelings and Perceptions cease. Why signal out feelings and perceptions for Nirodha Samapatti if everything ceases?

If you search for my thread about lucid dreamless sleep, hae1en posted a great scientific paper there. 

Ah, so that's what you meant. I see. Well, I guess I thought it was just to avoid repetition of the same wordings. I just assumed that it meant the same thing and didn't think much about it. But then again, I have never had that (non)experience so for me it's all hypothetical. 

Aha. Good to know.

I don't differentiate between them. I just think it's clearer to use the term cessation because I hear that people use the term fruition differently. But maybe people do that with the term cessation as well? 

Hm. My reaction in such cases is: there is some thing fishy! 

 Maybe you would actually think through every sentence in an 800 pages long book, but in my personal experience it gets tiring after a while, even in a 200 pages long book, and some sentences can just slip by because you need to honor the deadline. I used to be so picky about every wording as a reader (and admittedly I can still be) but now that I have seen the other side of it, I totally get why some vagueness may still remain. Of course, that could just be my own limitations speaking. 

Oups... I can see how that can get awkward. 

I get why this is fascinating to people, and there is a natural inclination to think all this cessation, fruition, nirodha talk is bullshit. It's not, though. Cessation/fruition is a path marker. It's an event that says, at a minimum - this is stream-entry. Nirodha is a difficult thing to do and as far as I can tell it signals very little, or maybe nothing.

Here I'm tempted to tell people, "Just practice and see for yourself!"  But that never satisfies, does it?

I wasn't angry. I was just answering the questions. I don't always have a ton of time to reply so I tend to answer in short bursts. Sorry.

Not every, but certain sections catch my eye. This Nirodha Samapatti thing did -- especially because I found the same thing emphasized in various sources.

I think you have a very healthy approach!

Though it's got a sort of "woo woo" rep, it's a real thing, MIke.

I don't know what you mean by a "woo woo" rep.
I have still not received a satisfactory answer. 

Just you saying that it is a real thing does not do it for me.

The same way as when a monk says "Re-birth is real. Just keep practicing. And you will see it." -- does not do it for me.

Oh I see now why Ingram sais "dont use the N word" (he meant Nimita but can be applied to Nirvana also) And I see why Kenneth Folk might piss off some dhamma people by shoving Cessation, Nirodha and being heavily sedated into same box as Nirvana. All think their own experience is the only true one (hide ... Im actually out of here, bye bye ... noting, neck stiffness, itching, unpleasant ... smiley alert   )

I've experienced it. That's the only reason I said, "It's a real thing."

Super! Good for you! -- is all I can say -- exactly as the first person that the Buddha tried to convert but failed -- said to him.


That said,

At this point, I've found nothing inside me that is eternal -- of this I've a rather strong conviction. An everlasting soul -- I've not found -- and I've a rather strong conviction of this. That anicca, dukkha, anatta are real, I've a rather strong conviction of this. 

But that there is some transcendence in any form (example: a state with no consciousness -- when it's impossible to know for sure whether there was consciousness in the state or not -- and the only answers that I receive are of the form -- I have experienced it -- and thus that is what must have happened -- without any justification beyond that) -- I don't buy it.

You're under no obligation nor am I trying, to convince you to buy anything. You get to decide for yourself. You asked some questions and I did my best to give you answers from my personal experience. That's all I've got in this dharma practice realm.

Sorry, I have to ask: Who said anything about eternal? Transcendence?

I'd be interested to hear more about this if you'd be willing to share, Chris.  In some Buddhist traditions this experience is considered to be quite significant.  

Ok, for those who somehow need more, here goes:

One distinguishes these and other events where things seem to blip out, vanish, or whatever by the following criteria: the meditator, the setup, the entrance, the thing itself, the exit, and the after-effects.

However, while I can clearly spell out all of the details, and do in MCTB1/2, this is not the same as actually being able to do it in practice. It is like wine tasting, where some people can tell oak notes and road tar and cherries and all of that stuff, and some people just can't.

For Nirodha Samapatti, it is actually by far the easiest of the various experiences to identify clearly, standing out strongly from all of the rest of them as it does:
*Meditator: only anagamis and arahats with mastery of the formless realms and the ability to ride a strange line between samatha and vipassana with a high degree of balanced, tranquil, easy control can even think about attempting this, so it is already a strangely small crew. In fact, I can count on one hand the number of people that I personally know that I actually believe have attained to this. If you are not an anagami or arahat with strong technical mastery of jhana and insight, you haven't attained this, so you can remove it from your differential diagnosis. In fact, if you are asking the questions you are, it is pretty much guaranteed that you haven't attained this. The chances of most meditators attained this in their lifetime are so small that it is very rarely something to seriously consider as what might have occurred.
*Setup: You rise with very light, easy effort up through the jhanas to the 8th jhana while mixing in about 30% insight. You come out, and, having resolved gently to attain to NS either when you started the rise before the 1st jhana or resolving now, you chill and do nothing. NS either happens within a minute or two or it doesn't, and most of the time it doesn't.
*Entrance: Thoughts, body and consciousness itself vanish rapidly in an analogue fashion over less than a second. It is a total, dramatic power failure. This is easily distinguished from the Three Doors, as it involves none of these: rapid impermanence, something falling towards you, something falling away from you, or any other Door variant.
*Thing itself: No experience, time, or anything at all. To a person watching, they appear still on their cusion or laying down or whatever posture they are in and will be hard to get to come out of it by external stimuli.
*Exit: Exactly like the entrance but in reverse order, like consciousness and experience powering up again in a rapid analogue fashion. This is distinct from the restart after Fruition.
*After-effects: The afterglow is heavy and powerful beyond reason and oddly long-lasting, typically lingering for 5-24+ hours, like one had taken some perfect drug that was at once highly chill but also produced a great deal of stable alertness. I think of this as what people are attempting when they mix uppers and downers, but the NS afterglow is perfect version vs what people typically get when they do that, which is at once muddled and edgy, whereas the NS afterglow feels, well, sublime, divine, incredibly right. No other attainment has an afterglow this good. It takes the top prize with no close competitors.

Fruition is also easy to identify in theory, but harder in practice, as there are lots of possible mimics, and it doesn't have the extreme marks.
*Meditator: One who has at least attained to Equanimity, Conformity, Change of Lineage, and Path insight stages the first time or is at least a Stream Enterer in Review. It doesn't occur to non-noble ones. So, the entrance criteria are vastly lower than NS.
*Setup: One rises through the stages of insight to Equanimity and attained to Confromity Knowledge. So, one requires much less meditative skill and technical competence than for NS.
*Entrance: Through one of the Three Doors, as describe in MCTB2. These are all quite different from the entrance to NS, which is analogue and doesn't involve the rapid presentation of the Three Characteristics in the same way as the Three Doors do.
*Thing itself: Again, like NS, there is no time, space, consciousness, etc. To a person viewing them, they typically have their eyelids blink and then come out of it clear and seemingly normal if it last a very short time, or, if it lasts longer, they would view them as a still mediator on their cushion without obvious response to the outside world. So, externally, during Fruition that has duration to it or NS, the meditator will appear largely the same, though their breathing may be much slower in NS.
*Exit: The mind restarts very rapidly clear and clean, fresh, bright, present, satisfied, like it has been reset and refreshed.
*After-effects: This bright, clear, refreshed feeling typically lasts seconds to minutes and then fades rapidly, the major exception being the first time a path, particularly stream entry, is attained, after which the after-effects can be more dramatic and longer-lasting, but are nothing like the NS afterglow, which stands out as its own thing.
*dDx (medical abbreviation for "differential diagnosis", meaning things that could mimic Fruition): a momentary blip into a formless experience, any state shift between one state or stage and another, the A&P, Dissolution, and some others. It is very, very common for people to think they have attained to a Fruition when, in fact, they have not. Probably 98% of people I talk with who are trying to determine if they have them don't at all meet the criteria, IMNHO. It is true that plenty of people are relatively poor phenomenologists, making sorting this out difficult, but it is still worth attempting.

As to Animittam Cetosamadhi, or "signless concentration" or something like that, yes, I have read the texts that mention it, and yes, I am aware of it, and the hard problem is that there is not enough clear technical information or defined criteria found in any ancient to get a sense of what exactly they meant by that. I could go into a long quote-fest of the references to it, and it sounds like you yourself would be familiar with a number of them, but they don't help, so far as I can tell. How it relates to Fruition and NS is debated in those rarified circles that care about such things. I personally don't believe it is well enough defined in the ancient texts and commentaries to come to definite conclusions, so I let it go long ago and decided to simply practice well, which I have found satisfying.

As to your own practice, is any of this actually relevant to you? If this is just a mere intellectual exercise, probably just more suffering. Then the question is, "Why?" Why suffer more?

Best wishes,

Daniel

There was a stretch of time when I was worried about stuff like this. It wasn't a mere intellectual exercise, but maybe I was pretending it was. I was pretty sure I had attained at least stream entry, but I couldn't make it line up 100% conclusively with what I read in MCTB and on this forum. I found myself getting increasingly angry at people like Daniel (sorry!). One day, and I don't know how this happened, I just realized that the quickest way out of that mess was to simply declare myself a stream enterer and be done with it. Crisis averted.

Why aren't you ready? What's stopping you?

It's so much nicer not having to worry about that anymore. Much easier than I thought, too. You just do it.

That's what matters.

Good practice Mike. It does sound like strong practice and significant progress down the Therevada paths...

For what it's worth, it seems like most people use noting/jhana for a big part of their early work and make good progress, but then they have to transition to something else to really tease away the remaining blindspots and resistances.

Even though people in this stage have nearly instant access to "the state of presence" -- it has the flavor of still being state-like and there still being some sense that "I have" and  "that state". And these people tend to have much less distinction between formal practice and living life... but they notice during practice and during off-cushion life there are times of easy "going with the flow" and other times of "somehow still stuck". There is still some existential tension and very subtle suffering that kinda bugs us and it's really hard to tell the root cause... 

So much of the latter part of practice involves 1) the suffering created by "worldviews" and 2) the tiny reactive patterns that take hold when confronted by not-knowing.

(My opinion on the best text for this stage of practice is Wake Up to Your Life, by Ken McLeod -- which is a fairly jargon-free description of the practice done in a tibetian three-year retreat. Definitely skip over stuff that seems basic, the book was written for all audiences, but the practices themselves are really intended to be used very advanced ways.) 

The suffering of worldviews is how we make some basic assumptions about how life is or should be and then get subtly frustrated when things don't line up. Usually we'll blame ourselves for something we're doing wrong... but often at this stage it's our worldview that is flawed. And most of these worldviews are founded on some simple assumption, like the event being being wrong, or not enough, or the same as it was in the past, or inherently satisifying, or an accomplishment, or an escape. Usually these are associated with subtle proto-emotions of opposition, greed, dullness, desire, ambition, and pride. This is the classic 6 realms teaching and being reborn in realms --- hell beings, hungry ghosts, animals, humans, asuras, and devas -- but for very advanced meditators. It focuses on the subtle psychology of identity.

The suffering of tiny reactive patterns is how, when faced with actual freedom, we instinctively react to maintain some sense of self. We either try to hold onto some idea, or avoid some kind feeling of danger, or enhance some distracting desire, or rush make ourselves busy, or freak out --- and these little reactions occur within about 1/4 of a second after we have a moment when our normal I-based coordinate system falls away. This is the classic 5 elements teaching -- earth, water, fire, air, and void --- but again it's for very advanced meditators. It focus on the subtle existential threat caused by "non-existance". 

I provide that as food for thought. Many times people chase fruitions and jhanas and NS as something that will "fix" the suffering of worldviews and reactive patterns. My approach was to go directly into the worldviews and reactive patterns that cause suffering and untangle them. My mind would fall naturally into jhanas, but from my perspective it was more like my mind was using jhana to avoid directly experiencing the inherent dukka of views and reactions -- so more of a very advanced avoidance mechanism! I found that directly experiencing the inherent suffering of the 6 realms (so to speak) and the inherent suffering of the 5 elements (so to speak) provided what I needed to see why I was still clinging to an "I" and a "no-I".

The state of presence is very seductive and seems to be a refuge, but it's state-like nature is a bit of a give away. The state of presence is still a very subtle contraction, which you can detect because it still is a _state_. 

Hope this helps in some way!


 

It helps me. 

Interesting. The only time I can say that I am confident that I experienced fruition is during Ashtanga yoga practice. Specifically, about 60 mins into a practice session, when I am doing seated postures on the floor. You are supposed to keep your eyes open during practice but I used to sometimes close my eyes as I was in such a deep meditative state and fruitions would occur. The reason this became apparent to me is that Ashtanga yoga is practiced with the breath - e.g. each posture is held for 5 inhales and 5 exhales - and the whole sequence marries up to the in-breath and out-breath. Hence it would be obvious to me that I had a fruition as I would "come to" and not remember which breath I was up to! It was a really weird feeling - like a tiny absence seizure I guess. It is a complete cessation of all consciousness. You are aware that you were "not there" for a moment and then you come back. 

These days lately my Ashtanga practice is really slack - I listen to a podcast while practising and keep my eyes open - so I do not get into a deep meditative state. However, I would like to try again in order to see if I can catch which breath the fruition occurs on!  

I like the 'analog' vs 'digital' analogy.

I've experienced NS once. Disclaimer: I was under the influence of LSD, so consider this deluded bullshit if that isn't your thing.

Towards the end of the trip I had an overwhelming urge to sit, and quickly rose up the jhanas, formless realms, with an ease that my sober practice can't compare to. I'm certainly not a highly attained person, but being somewhat chemically enhanced, I thought fuck it, I'll try for NS since this is pretty fun.

So after setting that intention, I was playing with the formless realms using some instructions I'd got from Michael Taft's Home Practice Program on them. Going up, coming out, seeing how much stability vs how much insight was needed to deepen them. After a while I kind of gave up, and just rested in a dzogchenish fashion, and then the 'analog shutoff' happened: it was almost like some kind of sci fi VFX of a computer shutting down, the sensations both mental and physical just kind of wooshed outwards and dispersed like mist being sucked into a vacuum, and then... nothing. Then in the same kind of fashion, they wooshed back in.

Now the nothing was the same nothing as cessation, but cessation in my experience is extremely rapid, digital, it's on then it's off then it's on again. Whereas that other thing (whether NS or not) was more of a rich sensory experience leading in and out of it.

I have had fruitions like that, though, and I'm absolutely sure that they weren't NS. 

My experience with nirodha is that it occurs after abiding in the 8th jhana. If I incline, from that point, gently, in a certain "direction" (not a spatial coordinate, but let's call it "down") then it begins to feel like I'm falling into an endless dark tunnel. All perception fades out and then... nothing. Analog is probably a good way to describe the perceptual tone. This has only happened two times and only when I was very, very, really, really "into" my practice, back in the day, and never since.

Given that, if I have time to have a long conversation with someone about paths, I come to the conclusion that probably 98% who think they have whatever path very likely don't, or are simply way too bad at phenomenology and applying dharma terms and language in some reasonable fashion to come to anything like a solid conclusion, IMNHO, I personally am even more uncomfortable when people attempt to diagnose paths by internet forum. Obviously, as I run an internet forum where this sort of unfortunate behavior routinely happens, I have a tolerance for a diversity of opinion and action on this, but it is, just that, a tolerance, and a very reluctant tolerance, and definitely never an endorsement. This is complicated by the fact that some of the people who do this somewhat often are in other ways great practitioners who routinely give very useful advice in other matters and whose participation in this forum I value highly. It is a complex world with complex, multi-faceted people.

On other topics, the Fruition breath timing question some dude asked about:

I have had thousands of Fruitions in daily life where I have good reference points for the timing of them, such as while driving or talking, allowing me to know for certain that the Fruition happened as the out-breath ended and was over as the next in-breath began, thus having an extremely short duration to external time.

I have had thousands of Fruitions in formal meditation that utterly lacked those sorts of hard, definite, external temporal reference points, but, given how long the sit lasted and the setup lasted, couldn't possibly have lasted that long, but I had no reference points as to how long the Fruition lasted, and they all involved the world vanishing on the out-breath (at least during those Fruitions when the breath was perceived as part of the formations that made up the entrance, which is countless, as I have often used the breath as primary object) and reappeared on an in-breath with a characteristic breathing pattern and feel to it that is distinctive and essentially noticed 100% of the time.

Lastly, there have been a much smaller number of Fruitions that occured on the cushion that had something external like a sound with definite timing (like a song playing somewhere in the background) that hinted at duration, but, being oddly cautious as I am, none were so definitive that I could be 100% certain that duration of any consequence had occurred, and repetition of these in some controlled way has been difficult, at least for me. Of these, when the breath was part of the entrance formations, it was always ending, and the breath was always coming up when reality reappeared. Thus, I can only conclude that Fruitions appear quantized when it comes to breaths, lasting for some regular count of whole breaths, which may also be 0 (see above), or at least in my experience.

Recently, I have recorded myself meditating over 50 times with a research-grade EEG on and sometimes video that involved at least one clear, high-grade (solidly met all the criteria and had great Three Doors phenomenology) Fruition, and, what I notice is that, for some, there is this marked reduction in a lot of the brain activity that lasts perhaps 2-3 seconds. The breath is always coming up when these end, but, as I tend to be breathing pretty slowly during Fruitions, it could be that the very last part of the out breath and some brief part of the in-breath is cut off from experience during this 2-3 second possible duration.

However, there are numerous problems in definitively interpreting those meditation EEG runs, and I would be extremely hesitant to claim duration based on them. Problem one is eye blink: even with eyes closed, my eyes nearly always clinch somewhat more tightly during the entrance to a Fruition, no idea why, and this looks like an earthquake of motion artifact on EEG, clouding interpretation. Various filtering strategies also can interfere with data interpretation, so one must be cautious.

Second, reduction in brain wave activity might be part of not only Fruition but also some part of the entrance and/or exit, so this also is entirely ambiguous data.

Third, marking the precise fraction of a second of the occurrence of the entrance to and exit from Fruition as they occur is extremely difficult, given what is happening, and precise timing of marks is key for having an ability to more definitely correlate the phenomenology to the neuro (in this case EEG) and thus do proper neurophenomenology.

I am working on these problems with some high-level academic friends who have vastly more knowledge of how to handle these than I do, but the work is slow and tedious. Part of those studies will eventually involve respiratory monitoring timed with the EEG, so hopefully at some point we will have much better data to work from. In the meantime, it is all experiential.

I hope that actually has some practical value rather than just being the basis for further dogmatic argument and avoidance of experience by obsessive intellectual activity.

Now that is promising! I hope to see some results one day.

It really sounds like a  believe system to me or some kind of
military rank, i suppose that monks needed this  particular ranking
system to reward  some who would go through this or that subjective
achievement and the only way of acknowledge it was to get the "diploma"
from the abbot or else  ... It remains nevertheless an artificial ranking
system, about  things of psychic nature, nothing  works like step1 to step 2 to step 3 and on and on ,
, it is not a ladder to be
climb or some kind of spiritual Everest bases camps , who knows what it
is exactly ? Buddha? not so sure ...

i 've been pointed out to this post because i made a post where i was
wandering about an experience i had that appears to match almost
perfectly  what you describe as NS except that i still had what i call a
"bare consciousness" but even though i master jhanas quite well  and
the experience came right at the end of jhanas, i do not have any
"diploma" in my pocket, ah, ah, so it must be a fail i guess.

It is like Jhanas, most people would think that this is related to
spiritual achievement, at least a little but i don't think so, there is
nothing spiritual in jhanas unless you see it this way( by the way, is
there any thing spiritual at all..or the other way round ? whatever) ,
jhanas are altered state of consciousness, that's obvious and any one
who is ready to make enough effort to reach them probably will, what he
believes makes no difference ,  no need to follow a lineage to go for
it, once you know the basics, it is even much quicker and deeper access 
if you don't walk the "spiritual line"!

i like Buddhism,  it is great stuff really but sometimes we should
read between lines and see things totally out of the way those people
was thinking a long time ago, "knowing and seeing" as a great master
said, yes but who  will have a vision with today's eyes.

Avec tout le respect que je vous dois, mon ami, je suis fermement convaincu que vous parlez à cette personne.

thanks for the respect,  but please in english is better, i guess not much people speak french here ;-)

and yes and...no, i read his book,(  not all i'm afraid,  too much words, ah, ah) and i can see that if  he is   looking things in a "modern way" it's still a very traditional way for me, but it doesn't matter, i don't mind, i just see it differentely that's all

in english then, i am convinced that Daniel Ingram is a person who has in fact made what the Buddha experinced, understood, and taught available to a contemporary idiom through his mastery of both the scriptures and his mastery of the techniques described in the scriptures.

How else could it work? We all work within a tradition; the way traditions live is for a new generation to make the realities spoken of in the tradition's scripture their own, down to the visceral, neural level, and to speak in that generations new tongue the ancient truths.

What is your tradition, if I may ask?

(edit) This was rude on my part, perhaps. Mr. Tom has indicated some of where he is coming from in a couple of other posts since coming to DhO. Relevant selections below. 

I would still be very interested, Mr. Tom, in your response to my question "How else could it work?" than by being, essentially a radical traditionalist who is eventually able--- like Daniel, imho--- to reincarnate a tradition in modern flesh.

I'm sorry for directing you here. I didn't do it to put you down. I honestly thought it was a very helpful clarification. I don't believe in absolute truths that can be accessed, but I find that some constructs are much more reliable than others for the purpose of navigation in our partly shared world. 

On this forum I have come to realize more and more the extent to which people use words differently. That says a lot, since I have been a communication researcher for almost twenty years. This adds to the challenges of phenomenology itself (not that phenomenology and language can be entirely separated, as they inevitably interact). It is all too easy to either incorrectly assume that people are talking about the same thing or incorrectly assume the opposite, even if the observations are detailed and precise, because it is so tricky to synchronize frames of reference with regard to meditative experiences and phenomenological language. Many of the words that are used routinely are vague as fuck (pardon my French). I'm not talking about the terms asked about in this thread now - I think they are as precise as this kind of terminology comes - but the more descriptive/metaphoric lingo that people use and pick up from each other because they sound like a great description of what we just experienced. Wordings start to have a life of their own. We form concepts around them, all in our own ways, and that interacts with how we interpret sensory experiences. I can easily imagine that someone could pick up the lingo and apply it to something that isn't even on the maps, and from that draw conclusions about advanced attainments. And that's just assuming that we are all honest, which I prefer to believe but sometimes (rarely and probably in the fear nana) can get a bit paranoid about. There is enough information here for someone to fake progress from, to make fun of us or for other purposes, and that can be a scary thought. 

My own few cents about this. Not that I'm always wise enough to shut the fuck up anyway, but I'm working on it (trying to remember to take my ADHD medication is part of it). 

Hi Mike,

I enjoyed reading about your practice thanks and the responses it generated gave me a lot of food for thought.

The bit that really jumped out at me (apart from the intensity, by my lax standards) was giving everything in your life over to God. I'm not really a God person, but I went through an intense God phase at a pivotal moment in my practice (wherever I'm at, which may be nowhere special).

I was praying for someone who was sick (I never normally pray) and I really wanted them to recover, so I decided to assume that God had already decided to save this person and offer myself to God in thanks to do what he wanted with me (live or die). Although my motivation was somewhat selfish (I wanted to prove that I could heal this person), my wish was sincere (I was willing to die, which seems very irresponsible to me now). Maybe I didn't really think that I would die, but I was as sincere as I knew how to be. Unfortunately this person did in fact die (which was very likely anyway given how sick they were).

After that things took a significant turn. Looking back, it seems that this was the excuse I needed in order to "give myself up", because I was sick of being me. From then on I wasn't really able to take myself seriously any more as an individual with free will, which generated significant insights about choice of practice, identity, views, lifestyle etc.

Cheers
agnostic

Often it is grief itself that takes the dark night deep enough for true surrender to God, which is the point of the Living Flame of Love as it does God's best work. This not according to John X or Bernadette Roberts, who would both to the best of my knowledge be appalled that anyone could say such a stupid thing, but per the unknown author of the obscure little book A Hell of Mercy.

There is a well-known country-western song in the US that is called "Sometimes God's Greatest Gifts are Unanswered Prayers."

Grief can really be a very liberating thing. (Damn it, I really do need to read that book too. That speaks the language of my subconscious.)

I will begin by quoting the great Zen artist, St. Leonard Cohen, from his theological treatise on prayer, "Suzanne," analyzing the experience of the Jew, Jesus:

“And when he knew for certain only drowning men could see him, he said,
‘Let all men be sailors then, until the sea shall free them.’
But he himself was broken, long before the sky would open . . .”

You can’t teach, you can’t preach, you can’t communicate, how to achieve that breaking. To try to “teach” the obliteration of  samsara in that moment is to miss the point worse than entirely; to attempt to “cultivate” or “practice” that obliteration, ditto. You can teach, and cultivate, and practice self-discipline, temperance, moderation, balance, simple hygiene and simple common sense, intense and apply yourself to the practice of technique with all the talent and skill and intelligence and integrity at your disposal. But I don’t think that is what the people who were originally teaching nirodha are talking about. They are talking about something that only comes with drowning. You don’t renounce your breath, or oxygen, when you drown. You do everything possible to keep breathing. But at some point, there is simply not another breath to take. Everywhere you look, there is nothing breathable; every effort you make, there is no air for your lungs. You don’t teach that; you can’t. That’s nirodha. Nirodha, drowning, cessation, doesn’t mean you’ve renounced the party. It doesn’t mean you’ve mastered the party. It means the party’s over.

Mike, I know that this is probably infuriatingly imprecise to you. But my point is serious: this thing can't happen on purpose.

Absolutely! Better to know than not know. Even better yet, in the dharma. is to feel. I use the word "grok." It's a Heinlein thing. MIke, I love your attempts at analysis but speaking honestly (and taking the risk that this will anger you), it seems obsessive.

He's a fucking gorgeous dharma pit bull, chris, let the man work.

Yep, I was coming from a good place. Thanks for understanding me, which seldom happens in my house these days  

Dont' worry that is not rude at all, at least not for me ;-)

ok, imagine you want to learn potery, what will you do ? take some clay and give it a try? could be but hard and hasardous.
Buy some books about potery ? good start, find a potter to teach you ? even better.
Now you are learning potery and  you follow rules i guess, you do what the potter tell you to do and you learn potery isn't it?
Now you can basically replicate what the potter does, great, but wouldn't be interesting to try to develop you own skill, try new things, new shapes, be a little creative, once you know the basics why don't you try do go further in your own direction ? 

oh yeah but spiritual traditions is different stuff, they know all you need to know , just walk the line ...
isn't so?  that's funny because Buddha at his time was a very original guy, he learned local traditions ( an in India that's something huge!)
and went on a complete different direction, as a great master said one day:
"- he researched his own experience
- absorb what was useful
- reject what was useless
- add what was specifically his own"

And i encourage everybody to do the same but yes not walking the line is a difficult path and it is perfectly fine if you can't , most people can't, but it is the only thing i ever done and ever will.

Okay, true enough. That is actually how i learned writing, just dropped out of college after my first quarter and said fuck it, i'm learning this shit. Which i did, and most of it the hard way. But still, in terms of tradition: i modeled myself for years on other writers, whom i loved, like, basically, I wanna do THAT. Eventually--- and i think this is your point--- my own style did sort of emerge of the flavor of that particular stew, after a lot of cooking at high heat.

My original, um, point that i disagreed with, with you, was you using "traditional" with an implication of constrained capacity in craft, like the pottery student who can only make the pots that his teacher-potter made. My position is that Daniel Ingram, in the Theravadan Buddhist tradition, and even in the Buddhist tradition in general in many ways, is way way beyond just making only what the pottery how-to books he began with say. He is one of those rare ones who actually generates new scripture, which is, traditionally, sort of "disguised" as commentary on the old scripture, but also, as radical commentary, changes the vocabulary and has a revivifying affect that scares the shit out of the kind of traditionalists you seem to lump him with.