Reasons why I now think that attainments, paths, and ranks are silly:

1. There is no way to either objectively or subjectively verify the actual existence of these stages/paths/maps (if I am wrong about this please enlighten me).

2. Any time spent thinking about, analyzing, or competively/ambitiously focusing on paths and attainments is time spent NOT practicing. Actual practice is about varied methods of open awareness and one cannot be openly aware if one is caught up in concepts about maps and path and desires to get something.

3. Any time spent focusing on attainments and paths will create an automatic condition of suffering. Actual life won't ever match the ambition or the ideas which will leave one disapointed and frustrated.

Point #3 is a real killer.

4. Since people who practice dharma are often motivated by a romantic idea(l) of "arahats" and enlightenment, great power and authority is often bestowed upon those they believe have attained those things. This can lead to abuses of power and authority within practice communities, for example, an "enlightened master" can use his or her power to decide and name who in their community has or hasn't got "it" as a way to control the group. Once a student errs in some way (usually by questioning the authority of the boss) the supposed attainment can then be taken away as easily as it was bestowed.

Point three, at least, offers a lot of opportunity for practice, once one gets to the point where one can see it that way.

Most of my fascination with the maps and models dropped away as I got to know the experiences they describe first-hand. I think that is a natural thing to happen. Thus, while there are no "ranks", there is progress to be made, and progress implies a direction, before and after, increases in skill, qualities, whatever. Even seeing the maps as maps and not as expressions of ultimate truth is progress (from the place where they seemed so true, to the place where they are seen through).

Of all the silly stuff I've been fascinated by, the maps and models were among those that were actually helpful.

Cheers,
Florian

wrt point #1...

While I agree that the states and stages described in the maps and models are not actual "things", they can serve a pragmatic purpose. I can see how telling someone, "There are stages one passes through as they meditate," might inspire someone to really look at their experience, even if only to see if they're in a particular state or stage. When they think they are at a certain stage, people ask, "OK, describe it. What is it like?" And then people have to look again, more closely, and describe what is happening. That kind of looking can be good.

On the flip side, people can easily think they're at a stage which they are not. They can also (through the power of concentration) fabricate their experience via intention and trick themselves into thinking they've reached a particular state or stage in a naturally progressive way. I suspect this kind of thing happens often with the so-called pure land jhanas.

Like most dliemmas, I guess I have to answer this one with "it depends."

Hi Mike--
In terms of empirical validation of states and stages, there have been some interesting studies. A classic one I'm thinking of is Brown & Engler's study of retreatents on 3mth practice retreats (I believe at IMS, although they were also doing some studies in Southeast Asia, but at any rate, amongst Theravada culture). They broke the subjects down based on 1; what they were practicing mainly (shamatha or vipassana) and on whether the teachers felt they had attained stream entry (which is probably one of the least controversial stages anyway, it seems). What they found was certainly interesting; they were using interview techniques and either TAT or Rorschach tests, which are similar. Comparing before and after results, they found pretty much what you'd expect. The shammatha group, after 3 months, produced few associations and instead described in great detail the actual inkblots. The Vipassana group, after 3 months, produced profusive and elaborate associations to the inkblots, and their time responses (quick) and content (embarassing, often) indicated that, as you'd expect, they were not "censoring" either their own experience or what they shared as much as before, and far less than average. And in an interesting twist, in the SE group, although they seemed to have indeed (on a cognitive-reflective level, anyway) dropped the personality-view fetter, they actually tested out more extreme in terms of personality-- that is, their personality style as measured after the retreat (on which they attained SE) was actually more exaggerated. They were more "out" with their personality, you could say.
And this says little about the absolute validity of the maps and states and stages, and more about the general validity that 1) certain techniques do produce the effects that are claimed 2)applying the practices in some cases leads to changes in personality and sense of identity, just as is claimed (by the traditions), and largely for the reasons claimed.

This is important to emphasize only in that many educated Westerners are inclined to assume socio-psychological reasons for these changes, or to write them off altogether as re-scripting-- people just changing what they say and think about themselves in order to "convert" to a new religion or worldview. So it's nice in such contexts to have such research, and related newer research on brain change in meditators, which confirms actual transformations of consciousness and identity that go way beyond mere "conversion" to a new worldview, which is how a lot of western academics regard ALL claims of enlightenment (and, ironically, how many western "practitioners" relate to their "practice", on a practical level).

Anyway, in answer to your question, I think it's both/and, not either/or. Because if we take your question in the "hard" sense, then I think you're right it's good to be skeptical about reifying these "states" and "stages" as more than descriptions of spectrums of experience which can manifest in a huge variety of ways. Different paths use different methods, different balances of method and methodlessness, and have more or less rigid descriptions of the Process, and so on. People will usually gravitate to others who share similar experiences, as well as a fondness for certain maps, so just because (for example) folks at KFD like (and find things in their experience which correspond with) Kenneth's hybrid models, doesn't mean that they've got it all figured out (for everyone). Likewise with DhO and Daniel's take on Mahasi progress of insight: the mere fact that people congregate in such a place, and share similar experiences, says more about the sociology and psychology of humans than it does about the (absolute) validity of the dominant models there. We tend to congregate with people with whom we share experiences and interpretations!!

Of course, in some ways that applies to the evolving community here too--- don't you think? Perhaps it's somewhat different here in that we seem to be a group of folks who are more inclined, for whatever reason, to participate in a more heterogeneous and anarchistic space, and it seems that people come here and stick around cuz while we may have our own preferences regarding maps-no maps, methods-no methods, and these preferences may shift and morph and cycle, we generally seem pretty hesitant to interpret others' experience in terms of our favored maps and pretty open to different experiences and approaches.

Jake, thanks. Very interesting.

You know, I realize that when I make a statement like that, that I think attainments, paths and ranks are silly, I'm sort of overstating my case in order to generate disussions that will help me to better understand things.

Certainly there is nothing horribly wrong with all those things, and, certainly, maps can be helpful guides, especially of course on an intellectual conceptual level. But, in the moments of real practice, they can be left behind in order to have original experiences and insights.

Jake, is that study available anywhere on the web? I'd like to read it.

Though, I'm not sure why they thought it would be a good idea to use only projective tests. I guess it depends on when the study was conducted. From what I understand, projective tests aren't used that often anymore. They still use them to study psychosis and things like antisocial behavior. As far as run-of-the-mill personality or symptom inventories go, people tend to opt for more objective test these days, both clinician-administered and self-administered.

/tangential remarks.

Oh totally LOL you nailed it, that study was done in the seventies However, upon careful reflection, I believe there may be some solid validity to some aspects of how they were using the tests. I haven't studied too deeply on the conditions under which these methods came into and out of fashion, so I'm not sure if this occurred due to changing paradigms and other socio-cultural factors or actually due to their usefulness. (Ever read Thomas Kuhn's work on the sociology of scientific revolutions? Some interesting data and ideas there) It would be an interesting thing to look into!

As for availability, it's in Engler, Brown & Wilber's Transformations of Consciousness-- I'm not sure if it's available online, but if you check and find it, let me know. I stumbled across it when I was a teenager and I'm in my mid-thirties now, so perhaps I'd have a different impression or interpretation of their methods

@ Mike-- well said, I think you're making a key point that's valuable for any practitioner. Also, I think it's interesting that their research certainly didn't validate the details of the four-path model, for instance. Also in another article in the same book, one of the two researchers compared the progress of insight according to the Vishudimagha to the path in (I believe) the Yoga Sutras.

He found broad similarities but also key differences, for example, in Vishudimagha practice one experiences things arising and passing with great discontinuity in certain stages (I'm sure many here have had such experiences) while in the yoga context one discovers descriptions of the same territory as a continuous flow of subtle experience, becoming more and more subtle but never manifesting that on-off thing. Cessation is experienced as pure knowingness in the yoga context without mind and body, not a complete blank, so similar to Thai forest Theravada but different from Mahasi theravada, and so on and so forth. And those three traditipons-- Thai forest, Yoga, and Vishudimagha, are pretty closely related in time and space. Add in Mahamudra, various Zen lineages, and other contemplative traditions, you get different methods again, differnt characteristic experiences, and different maps. Which comes first, the map, method, or experience? Or are they all co-arising?

And what's so important about what you are pointing at is that the essential thing isn't a state, stage or method, so no map can really map this essential thing. It's our true nature, and maps imply somewhere to go (so something must be wrong with here), methods to address this something wrong, to move from here to there, and experiences of attenuating the wrongness over time, as we move from here to there. But it's not like that at all, in life, is it!!!??? Indeed, it seems to me that the real breakthroughs in my own practice have occurred at right angles to these maps, experiences, and methods. The breakthroughs have happened in dropping all of that, and just being completely present with the indescribable, unmappable, inescapable. Which has led me as well to be increasingly attracted to no-method, no-map, no need to apply illusory antidotes to illusory problems. You know?

So from such observations I think it's wise to be skeptical that even profound subtle experiences in deep meditation are "ontologically" real. So far from practice seeming to validate the maps, for me anyway so far, not feeling "done", the thing seems to be that through exposing mind to these subtler dimensions which challenge our pre-concieved dualistic maps, we learn to live in the trackless, pathless, unmappable more and more trustingly, without needing to know "where" we are, or even, "that" we are

word.

frution/stream entry/cessation -- I wonder about these things a lot lately.

Assuming they are real, I think I've had what is commonly thought of as stream entry and I think I know what 'cessation' is. But I'm not really sure, you know? Either that they are real things or that I'm actually a stream entrant if it is real or that the things I think of as cessations are actually the cessations talked about in the dharma literature.

Now, I've had a dharma teacher tell me that I had "stream entry" and "fruition" and "cessations" but this was a relationship that I only had through the computer and it was an intermittent relationship at best, so it is hard for me to put much faith in the teacher's diagnosis, you know? (again, assuming these are real things)

what I do know is if I look very closely at my experience, in great detail, with momentum and continuity (not stopping to think or analyze or imagine between sensations or events) often there will be an empty-feeling moment, rapidly followed by a jerk of my head as if I am suddenly being startled awake. Is that cessation? Maybe.

lol I love it Mike You know, here's my growing conviction: what I call a "bagel" can't fit in that description, in that word between the quotes. Know what I mean? As soon as I shift into a description, I either lose the "suchness" of the bagel and fall into the dream that "I" "know" "the bagel"---- or else I see the description as just a description, a label, a fiction, a fable. How much more so with such descriptions of "awakening"?

Ironic that my first ever "awakening" experience happened while staring at a bagel which had just fallen to the floor. It was the last piece of food in the house (I was a kid at the time, grew up pretty poor). It was an everything bagel, and I looked at it after it fell, realizing I couldn't tell if the little bits were all meant to be there or if some of em were dirt from the floor ( a big phobia at the time).

Anger and frustration grew into a red hot iron ball in my chest, the most intense anger ever, red-hot---- and in the blink of an eye, exploded into sheer clarity and peace, without warning. Everything was crystal clear, I could see the atoms that everything was made of shining like little drops of liquid light. I could see the infinite details of the trees in the woods out the window and across the yard. In the space where "I" had been, within, there was only a vast, vast, clear darkness. Just that and the crystal clarity of fully-awake senses. I looked down at the bagel, and a voice echoed from the depths of the still vastness that had been "my mind" a moment before-- like the Voice Of God. You know what it said, Mike? In kindly and reasonable solemnity, as if uttering the greatest profundity ever uttered (and it was)---- "just. eat. the bagel" But..... I guess that was "just" an "A&P event". hahaha

"But..... I guess that was "just" an "A&P event". hahaha "

I'd say that was one HELL of an A&P event! (and a Great story!)

Friend of mine had a heart attack recently. A distinct calm voice told him two things: "you aren't going to die" and "call an ambulance"

lol Brilliant Mike!
Glad you guys liked the story. Of course for the next 10 yrs or so I was caught in the vortex of trying to get "back" to that experience I told it to someone recently and a while later he told me he kept laughing out loud when he thought of the "everything bagel". I'd never caught that angle of the story before but it is kind of a pun I suppose --

"I told it to someone recently and a while later he told me he kept laughing out loud when he thought of the 'everything bagel'. I'd never caught that angle of the story before but it is kind of a pun I suppose --" -Jake

That's priceless.

OK, so I have to share an A&P description now...

I think it was July of 2008. I had just started practicing noting, a la Jack Kornfield's Meditation For Beginners, in March. I was sitting in my living room on my new zafu I had just purchased on eBay (which I still have). I thought, "maybe I should just practice concentration." I focused on my breath for a few minutes, and zoomed into the most focus and one-pointed state I'd ever experienced up to that point (which was 1st jhana/1st ñana 'mind & body'). I just kept paying attention to my breath, and things started to speed up (mostly tingling in the body).

Then out of nowhere, a vision came to me. My eyes were closed, but I could see my living room just where I was sitting. I shadowy figure appeared. Just its outline was visible, as it was completely black/dark. It appeared to be wearing some kind of hooded cloak, like the "Scream!" guy, but I couldn't see a face. It pulled out a pair of silver colored scissors, and then reached out and grabbed my scalp. It pulled upward, and my skin stretched up and out. He made a snip at the top, which caused everything buy my bones to drop away. I sat for a moment, as a skeleton, completely stunned. The shadowy figure then grabbed the top of my skull (this all happened very fast, you know) and pulled upward again. My bones stretched upward just like my skin. He made another snip at the top, and my bones dropped away. This was followed by -- as Daniel Ingram would say -- my consciousness exploding all over the room. We're talking major fireworks, multi-colored and intense. When the energy calmed, I felt like a TV that had blown out due to an energy surge. Little electrical zaps and tingles continued as I lingered there, sitting on my new zafu in the middle of my living room.

At the time I had a simple understanding of the maps, thanks to Ingram's Buddhist Geeks interviews. I thought it was either that A&P thing he talked about, or perhaps just some funky visionary material due to strong concentration. The following 6 months of discomfort proved that it was the former. Thank goodness for good, clear instruction at the old Dharma Overground. Stream entry came the following February.

Jackson

whoa!! that's crazy!!! Yeah, the consciousness exploding thing definitely corresponds to my "bagel experience". Classic! If I had had access to clear maps and good guidance at that point (I was about thirteen or fourteen) it may have saved me some needless suffering. Then again, I learned a lot organically in the meantime and I'm starting to lean towards an integral developmental model, meaning, at the point of psychophysical maturity I had at the time, I just wouldn't have been motivated to pursue sitting practice--- but who knows, if I'd had the broader context explained to me, rather than being given generic instructions and having all contents of my experience dismissed as "just experiences", I may have been motivated and encouraged rather than dismissed and in the dark. I had encounters with vipassana teachers, trained in the IMS context, but I have no idea how deep their practice was and the culture around their teaching definitely didn't display any understanding of maps, experiences, stages and so on. At the college where I'm at right now there is a strong presence of "dharma culture", a mix of Shambhalla and Vipassana practitioners mostly, but again, it's a very closed culture with regard to straightforward questions and answers regarding personal experience, understanding, and liberation. It's mostly in dealing with the frustration and general vagueness of this climate at school that is making me re-think this whole issue.

There must be a balance between framing the "process" in terms of attainments, ranks and so on, which definitely tends to enact some social dynamics which I think hold people back (both those of "higher" and "lower" rank, but creating a sort of in group out group thing with a lot of group think) and the other extreme of never talking aboout experience and realization at all.

Perhaps simply framing experience and realization more in terms of letting go of delusions, craving and aversion rather than of acquiring attainments, paths and ranks, which after all only serves to reinforce egos when you consider that the process can be described straightforwardly in terms of letting go and becoming simpler and more flexible. We have to honestly ask what is the purpose of describing the path in terms of acquiring attainments, paths and ranks when it can just as easily-- and phenomenologically, I think, even more accurately-- be described in terms of what is lost, released, relaxed, dropped.

I know what you mean about the value of the maps though, Jackson. You know, just being told that shit's gonna get wacky after things open up is a big confidence builder and helps keep one on-track, keeps one from naively assuming that things going all yucky is a sign of backsliding-- when it's more like a purging that follows pretty naturally on the opening-up. Or a chance to re-integrate the energies which have been bound up in subliminal, subtler levels of suffering.

I find this wisdom embedded in every tradition of which I'm aware; it's one of the meanings of "purification" in the Tibetan lineages I'm privy to. I think it's so logical that opening up, increasing clarity, and deepening the concentration of one's vitality will naturally "bring up" some deeper more pervasive and ethereal discomforts, expose deeper layers of suffering, and subtler versions of the mechanism of clinging which enacts dukkha! And it's really re-integrating those energies, relaxing the ignorance clinging and aversion on those subtle levels, which seems to open the possibility of radical transformation of the mind-stream, IMO.

Yes, Jackson, that is quite a story. No wonder you kept practicing so relentlessly -- after that experience you had to KNOW there was more, way more, to know and experience and see.

I've never had a scissor man or everything bagel experience where my consciousness exploded into rooms. I know that when I first tried vipassana (Irvine, CA, 1976) I had the mind and body moment when I realized for the first time that not only was I here in my mind the way I'd always thought, but that I was also here as a body that breathes in a way I'd never noticed before. Does that make any sense? I know what I'm trying to describe but I have no idea if I'm able to convey it. But things changed for me because of that.

From then on, though, my "events" were always very undramatic and calm experiences characterized mostly as significant perspective shifts in which large amounts of suffering would go away as I started seeing who I really was and that there was really no problem. I often went for days or longer just feeling light and free -- experiences that always ended of course and were followed by equally-long periods of frustration.

Of course, maps aren't completely silly.

A theme that I see emerging from this discussion is that it's important to find ways of staying on the path; i.e. maintaining a middle way. Maps are useful when they help us to navigate our experience in such a way. But going too far in the direction of maps and models can result in the opposite of what is intended. That is, in using maps to stay on-track, we can put ourselves off-track. Anytime our practice becomes imbalanced we can get stuck. But even focusing too intently on finding balance can get one stuck, as "balance" could be misunderstood as some kind of state of experience rather than a guiding principle.

Whatever we do to practice applying open, accepting, compassionate awareness to present experiencing will help us on the path. Lucky for us, this happens to be our natural state. It is available all the time. How easy it is for me (for all of us, really) to forget that.

ah, I like how you are drawing out that theme from the discussion. thanks!

Those A&P stories are priceless! For me the maps have been most useful when everything was pain and shit and fear and grief, especially early on. Knowing that everyone has these experiences and they come and go in cycles and are completely normal was a great reassurance that I wasn't going to die. At least not literally.