Discussion: Haquan's "An Alternative View of the Maps"

Welcome to this forum Mark! When Kenneth and Haqan brought up this topic, I immediately thought that this was an ideal subject for you. Your answer to the main topic of this thread also seems to bring up new interesting issues.

If I understand you well, you are saying that fixing a reachable ultimate goal leads to a kind of spiritual baby blues, like "I am done, what's next guys?" Since similar issues have been addressed in the past, the Mahayana movement did bring a few answers including placing such unreachable goals beyond Arahathood that it soon becomes a series of endless discoveries. Unfortunately this endless journey discouraged most who started praying Amitabha Buddha to be reborn in Sukhavati instead of wasting eaons in endless Buddhist practices. We will have to find a midpoint between these two historic extremes; keeping in mind that the Arahat is "done" in the sense that, for him, death means entrance into Parinibbana.

I note also that Nagarjuna's "everything is empty (even emptiness)" is somehow similar to "nothing is true", even if its moral corollary "everything is permitted" seems to be closely related to monotheist cultures like Islam (Hassan-I-Sabbah) or Christianity (Dostoyevsky, Nietzsche) where metaphysical stands always had immediate moral and even political consequences. Nevertheless, we find similar moral controversies around Mahamudra, Dzogchen or the Hongzhou line of Chinese Zen.

-Alex

Hi Mark,

Welcome to the forum! I don't know if you've had a chance yet to read this entire thread, but I think some of your concerns have been discussed here and I'd be interested to hear your reactions. Also, there is a related thread at:

kennethfolkdharma.wetpaint.com/thread/32...3/How+do+you+know%3F

I agree with you that it's important to look beyond the maps to what underlies all of manifestation. This underlying reality cannot be mapped or understood. I've written about this here:

kennethfolkdharma.wetpaint.com/page/3rd+Gear

Here again, I'd love to hear your views.

Finally, you mentioned the "done" terminology as it relates to arahatship. According to the Pali suttas, the newly attained arahats used to walk up to the Buddha and proclaim that "done is what needed to be done," or something to that effect. It's no coincidence that they would use that language, as that is exactly how it feels when you come to the end of a hunger that has dominated your life for some period of years or decades. The "unfortunate" aspect of the "done" word has to do with both false claims of "doneness" and also general misinterpretation of what exactly it is that has been done. All of the Buddhist traditions differentiate between arahats and buddhas, so there is a great deal left to do after arahatship. As far as happiness goes, the news is good! I personally know perhaps half a dozen people who I think have a credible claim to arahatship and if they have anything in common it's that they are all very happy.

Kenneth

" The ground state of the Chaos Magician is empty of belief and hopefully, even of self. The maxim of Chaos Magick, a confrontative statement that inspires considerable bile in its critics, is: Nothing is True, Everything is Permitted. However this statement is abused in practice it does refer to a refusal to believe in absolutes and the proposition that all belief
systems are equally valid to the extent which they get the job done. "

If you look at the theory (CMT or Chaos Magick Theory), borrowed from Austin Osman Spare, behind most Chaos Magick is the idea of kia. Kia is what makes the magick work, it's the magician's kia which animates servitors (tulpa), and it is kia that is behind both Will and Perception. When one looks at it closely, kia is a fundamentally non-dual thingamajig, even though it is treated in CMT as a (dual) energy form - and being non-dual is therefore transpersonal. It's interesting how that works - most magic for it to work involves some kind of non-dual absorption state. It therefore has some interest in Bodhi - though it's orientation is more like that of applied engineering of such states.

Alan, Duncan, and I, despite their roots in this style of magick, have argued at length about Hassan il-Sabbah's famous motto. I have argued that the other possible slogan, "Everything is True, Nothing is Permitted" is clearly the worse alternative In the IOT the oath that is sworn is "I know there may be no Absolute Truth." I see it as an acknowledgment of fallibility, and there is no proscription on seeking Truth. I also prefer to see the motto as stating something along the lines of "Emptiness is True, All that is is Absolutely Free" rather than a licence for moral relativism. But the statement, as you point out, certainly has it's detractors.

I'm not so worried about heirarchies - I just don't like linearity.

Hello Alex and thank you, particularly for bringing up Nagarjuna. I long ago memorized Philip Kapleau's translation of the Prajna Paramita and I think it
perfectly consonant with the "Nothing is True" part of the Chaos maxim. One of the central points of the Heart Sutra is that the state of freedom the
Bodhisattva of Compassion experiences is beyond any definition. It is empty of definition ("dharmas here are empty, all are the primal void"). The Prajna
Paramita is a great refutation of absolutist thinking. "Nothing is True" easily fits within it. I thought the maxim was attributed to Le Vieux de Montagne, but I may be wrong.
The maxim swirls around in a half fictional stew with Baphomet, the Templars, the Third Crusade and the Hashishin in my mind. I believe the second half (Everything is
Permitted) is a refutation of the totalitarian moralizing of monotheistic cultures but I am more interested in the whole maxim in terms of Buddhist practice. If everything
is permitted and nothing is true everything is of equal validity in the spiritual path since anything can be used to achieve liberation. Really the maxim denies the quest for
liberation since there is nothing from which we need to be liberated. This does, of course, make the approach very similar to Dzogchen (etc). More important from my
view is that nothing is superior to anything else and thus the hierarchical gambit (to use the IOT's formulation) is not only incorrect but delusional (nothing is true, everything
is equally valid or invalid as the case may be). We can take everything is permitted as far as the Many Worlds Theory of Quantum Mechanics and consider
that everything is possible in the multiverse, and, in fact is actually happening somewhere. CONTINUED IN NEXT POST

We can do palpably stupid things like evoking Nyarlatopeth (don't) or invoking Baron Samedi (pretty cool, but YMMV). All is grist for the mill of your awakening
(or not if you are a nihilist). What the maxim constantly sends us back to is not actually different from Trungpa Rinpoche's and Reggie Ray's statements that
whatever we have in our lives is precisely what we need for our self knowledge, that we do not need to look somewhere else. There is nowhere to go, nothing
to do and anything we choose is just as useful as anything else. I note this does not mean we should do nothing (As Lear said, Nothing comes of Nothing -
but look where that got him). It means we do not have to be constantly leaning forwards into the future to the next great thing, whether that is whether that
is enlightenment or the A & P or the Formless Realms. We can do anything we want to do with great attentiveness and enthusiasm and if we don't get what
we imagined we would have, well, we probably have experienced a failure of imagination. Yes, feeling that way is spiritual baby blues but if we hadn't got
so caught up in fantasizing what how wonderful life with baby was going to be we probably wouldn't have the blues. Isn't this leaning into the future precisely
what mindfulness training is meant to moderate? Isn't there a way to use the maps without this constant craving to be somewhere else? I know I've read
that the craving for enlightenment is the last craving we should relinquish, but, frankly, I think it should be the first.

"I know I've read that the craving for enlightenment is the last craving we should relinquish, but, frankly, I think it should be the first." -kunzanshenpen

The craving for enlightenment is only relinquished upon enlightenment. I can't imagine that it could be otherwise.

For me, pragmatism is king. It seems clear that map-based practice helps many people. The fact that the Pali Buddha taught jhanas, maps, and hierarchies is convenient as he showed us the way. The Sanskrit Buddha, on the other hand, generally favored the direct path, with no maps and no linear progression. It seems clear that non-mapped based practice also helps many people. I don't have any problem with any of it and I use both approaches as pioneered by the two-headed Buddha to help people awaken.

As long as theory remains theory, it is of limited utility. We make it real by applying it. Once we have proven its worth in our own experience, we can get to work helping others by communicating with them in words that they can hear. I know you have a great deal of experience that you can bring to bear in helping others come to their senses and that is what I would most like to hear you talk about. What do you have for us today?

Kenneth

Hello Kenneth

Thanks for the welcome to your very interesting discussion board. I find your approach to be very clear and valuable. My personal history of direct path non dual Mahayana and Vajrayana forms has meant that I am quite ignorant of the Pali approach beyond a well read copy of Walpola Rahula's "What the Buddha Taught." I have no doubt I have uncritically accepted over the years some of the Mahayana slurs against the Theraveda which typically circle around the nature of enlightenment as described in the Pali Canon. I am grateful for your clearing up some of the terminological confusion with regards to your teasing apart the two states of enlightenment and buddhahood. Until I encountered your statements about the progress of insight in Vipassana referring to a physio-energetic model it had not occurred to me that enlightenment as described in this model and non dual primordial awareness were not the same. Am I correct in in this attribution?

I am also fascinated by your statement that the craving for enlightenment is only relinquished upon enlightenment. Perhaps this is a difference in personality type because I can truly find no craving for enlightenment within me. I don't remember ever having this craving. I converted to Buddhism, formally, 33 years ago out of a sense of recognition. Buddhism, when I finally encountered it, was the obviously correct way to describe the way I saw (and see) the universe, much more so than the Vedanta I had studied for some years prior. I know many writers have discussed the craving for enlightenment, including, I think, the Buddha of the Pali canon. It is just not my personal experience, nor that of my wife, nor of many of my admittedly strange friends.

I hurry to say that in the few months that I have been practicing the jnanic techniques described by you and Daniel I have found them extremely useful CONTINUED IN NEXT POST

and I have experienced the jnanas, at least the first 5, in pretty much the way you and Daniel describe in the maps. Whether this is because I am modeling your maps or whether the maps reflect some deep order in the mind makes not the least bit of difference to my delight that the techniques do indeed create these states. Really, this is a great service you guys have done, in presenting these maps so succinctly and clearly. Like Haquan (post 41 above) I am another one of those special cases who is interested in primary reality.

-Mark

Hello, Mark, and welcome! You said, "I am another one of those special cases who is interested in primary reality."

Can you explain this comment a little more (and David, please step in, too, if you have the time). It seems to me that the ultimate reality that underlies whatever it is we experience and process - what the human mind makes of it - is indeterminable. I don't see how we could ever "know" it in any way other than through the mind. In my pea brained version of this that is how we can say "it's all mind" when describing reality. My question is about which primary reality you are referring to - the one we interpret or the one that underlies what we interpret?

Also - I must be one of those special cases, too, although I am that way because of my practice of Buddhism. The investigation of my very existence is the path.

Thanks!

Hello Haquan

Yes Kia was very important to Spare. I assumed it was the same as Chi, Ki, or whatever. I'm always afraid if I pay too much attention to it I'll start waffling about the luminiferous ether or something. Is it actually there? Is it a medium, a primordial substrate, or a convention I use to persuade myself a magickal action is going to work?

The Old Man of the Mountain's dictum is useful in the arguments it generates. Of course, just because something is permitted does not make it a good idea. I m a Buddhist partly because there is no moral ground in Chaos Magick.

I guess I like neither hierarchy nor linearity. I prefer an isotropic universe (which is probably just as well).

-Mark

" Hierarchies of goals create hierarchies of needs which increase craving. I would prefer to regard the spiritual path as a series of unfolding revelations rather than the more linear hierarchy of progress leading to the rather unfortunately phrased state of being "done". At least then I don't have to wonder why, being "done", I may still be unhappy.
"

One thing to be clear about is that I've never proposed that the maps don't work - on the contrary they are tools which anchor progress. I think the whole thing works rather like the traditional model of psychoanalysis - in that case one develops a minor neurosis - a transference neurosis towards the analyst - when one is able to see through that, one sees through their deeper neurosis(es). Similarly the maps of insight are a kind of koan, that one sees through at the end. One possible way to view progress is cybernetically - new orders of consciousness are created through evolving complexity.

Actually, the whole desire issue was a huge barrier to my investigating Buddhism. I had a bit of a Nietzchean stance of believing we need our passions and suffering, and goals! It seems a lot of being happy in life has to do with finding just the right amount of challenge - too much and we're overwhelmed, too little and we're bored. I also didn't like what I saw as a withdrawal or detachment from life. Now I realize that some of this was a misinterpretation or misunderstanding of Buddhism. Ultimately though, I think that the final state is one in which a lot of these kinds of concerns will be rendered irrelevant.

Now as a Chaos magician, if you don't like the hierarchical maps, make up your own non-hierarchical map. Incidentally, I'm writing up something I'm calling DIY Tantra... I also agree that doing things like invocations of "non-spiritual" entities helps one to see that one's own personality is also only a mask.

" You said, "I am another one of those special cases who is interested in primary reality."

Can you explain this comment a little more... It seems to me that the ultimate reality that underlies whatever it is we experience and process - what the human mind makes of it - is indeterminable. I don't see how we could ever "know" it in any way other than through the mind. My question is about which primary reality you are referring to - the one we interpret or the one that underlies what we interpret?

Also - I must be one of those special cases, too, although I am that way because of my practice of Buddhism. The investigation of my very existence is the path.

Thanks!

"

Hi Chris,
When I made this statement, I was referring to understanding what was going on with the maps and the nature of enlightenment, rather than in the more general existential or ontological sense that you seem to be attributing to it. Not that it's not a good question - assuming there is an "underlying reality to what we experience and process." Notice that with the presumption there's already the implicit conclusion that we could not know this underlying reality - and there is an implicit separation between "us" and reality in the formulation as well. If there is an underlying reality to all we experience and process that we cannot know, is it relevant?

In terms why I want to see beyond the maps - it's simply a fascinating mystery. It may or may not be useful in terms of actually getting enlightened - I can see some scenarios where it might be a hindrance. I suppose in some respects it's like wanting to not only be able to play a song, but understand what is going on in terms of the music theory of that piece. Will understanding the theory make you a better player? Probably not by itself - but in combination with other things, like practice, it does.

Coming from a very technically oriented approach to "applied mysticism" looking at obtaining enlightenment is pretty different from any other possible objective. For one thing, no one can seem to describe what it is. So from square one, you don't have clear idea of what the actual objective is - it's a bit of a quest. You're told it's highly desirable, and worth the effort, but no one can precisely describe it, though certain claims are made about the effects such as it creates a permanent "happiness which is free from conditions." Also, it seems to be a universal human phenomenon, regardless of belief system - every religion has their enlightened folk, and they seem to report roughly the same things though their interpretations of the experience vary. Finally we have an association of "enlightenment" with the development of highly concentrated states - and a number of frankly bizarre experiences on the way. To top it all off, there seems to be no "objective" way to gauge progress towards this undefined goal - the maps are there for that, but clearly they aren't perfect, because then every cultures maps would be identical, and we probably wouldn't even be having this discussion.

Interestingly, I'm having Kenneth teach me the jhanas - and they've pretty much come up as expected - even ones that I had no prior knowledge of what to expect. So that would make you think that they're real, eh? But get this - I've had that happen before, with other systems - for instance, I've astrally ascended the Enochian planes, without knowing what would be there and my reports were consistent with the classic description. I've done the same with the Mythos (H.P. Lovecraft's invented world) and had the same kind of results - even with Dr. Suess's strange worlds (surprisingly useful for magick).
So what's going on with all this?

"So what's going on with all this?"

I .... simply .... do .... not .... know.



I will not eat them, Samiam, I will not eat greens eggs and ham. I will not eat them in the park. I will not eat them in the dark. I will not eat them on a train. I will not eat them in the rain. I will not eat them, Samiam. I will not eat green eggs and ham.

"
"So what's going on with all this?"

I .... simply .... do .... not .... know.



I will not eat them, Samiam, I will not eat greens eggs and ham. I will not eat them in the park. I will not eat them in the dark. I will not eat them on a train. I will not eat them in the rain. I will not eat them, Samiam. I will not eat green eggs and ham.



"

Would you eat them in a house? Would you eat them with a mouse?

We were using On Beyond Zebra for sigil work, and McElliot's Pool as a path working with surprisingly interesting references to the unconscious and the ideas (fish) one finds there. I thought it was an interesting parallel to Catching the Big Fish by David Lynch where he talks about his relationship to TM.

Related, I think:

I once listened to a talk by Christopher Titmuss, who said in it that while people like to think that meditation is the one true key to the path it really isn't quite that. What he said (paraphrasing) is that meditation is a great aid to the furtherance of the path but ideas, talks by teachers, the reading you do, and so forth, is as or maybe even more important (I forget which exactly). He said, essentially, that ideas matter. Those talks and the reading communicate maps and related ideas and put meditative experience in context.

David, please tell me you have never been accused of over-analyzing

Hi Chris, you asked

"which primary reality you are referring to - the one we interpret or the one that underlies what we interpret?"

Is the reality we interpret reality? I don't think so. Let's call any instance of reality an event. Interpretation occurs after the event so it can't be the event. It's a description of the event. But we can experience the event directly, without mediation. We do it all the time. Whether we can be conscious of this experience is another question. It does appear that there are some muscular responses by human beings to events that happen faster than the time it takes for a message to move from the brain to the muscles involved so these responses are occurring faster than interpretation. At the least high level martial artists, athletes, and, I believe, dedicated talented meditators do this. Are they conscious of the event? Not in the way we usually define consciousness. When I say primary reality I mean unmediated reality: events as they are, before the story my mind would like to tell about them. This is the reality that is happening before you note it, if what you're doing is Mahasi style meditation. It is there all the time. It is the medium in which we exist, more even than the water in which a fish swims, the air through which a bird flies. My interest is the revelation of this reality, which happens all the time. We're always in the Emerald City as Toto pulls the curtain to one side to reveal no Wizard, no curtain, no Toto, no movie, and no us.

Mark, let me try to address that but please recognize I'm not sure of anything I'm about to say. I'm in agreement with you about Toto and the Wizard but I also think the two realities (mediated/unmediated) are both true within their own context. I think that's ultimately the way we're wired. Our senses and our brains/minds evolved to create the sense that there is a "me" that makes decisions, is in control of "my" life, is connected to a sensible world, experiences events in sequence, experiences a "now," and so on. That all seems to be required for us to survive. On the other hand we can, with effort, penetrate that mediated version of the world and see the ultimate/unmediated nature of our experience - the water in which the fish are swimming to use the metaphor you chose. Which is the real version? I can't choose because I don't know which is more real that the other. I've been experiencing the unmediated version more and more lately and yet I still seem to live in the mediated version. Go figure!

After reflection, I realize that after death I would rather be resting in Nirvana than serving as an appetizer for Nyarlathotep in a dark Lovecraftian hell. If I start finding the jhanas better than sex, it also becomes clear that the fourth Jhana is not the ideal state to wash the dishes. It's not so much about linear goals, but more about options.

"
After reflection, I realize that after death I would rather be resting in Nirvana than serving as an appetizer for Nyarlathotep in a dark Lovecraftian hell.
"


Well, there's no accounting for taste!

Hi Chris, you wrote

QUOTE

On the other hand we can, with effort, penetrate that mediated version of the world and see the ultimate/unmediated nature of our experience - the water in which the fish are swimming to use the metaphor you chose. Which is the real version? I can't choose because I don't know which is more real that the other. I've been experiencing the unmediated version more and more lately and yet I still seem to live in the mediated version. Go figure!

END QUOTE

But this suggests there are two forms of reality. Of course there are deluded interpretations of reality. Interpretations based on a permanent self are provably untrue and relate only to fictional realities - story lines, movies. There are not two types of reality, unless we're using a very different definition of the word reality. Let's assume you can experience unmediated reality and that your mediated reality is not mediated by a deluded self narrative but is just a way that awareness is focused. To use an example. I am a jeweler. Many of the jobs I do are routine and I can do them listening to Joseph Goldstein's excellent series of lectures on the Satipatthana Sutta. Neither my work nor my enjoyment of his lecture suffer. But every now and then, doing, for example, a complicated piece of soldering I have to turn my iPod off. My focus narrows to just the point of the flame and a volume of space of a few cubic millimeters. These two states of consciousness differ in the degree to which awareness is concentrated. If I then walk outside (I work in a beautiful garden) to a gorgeous sunset my awareness expands to the whole environment, the whole sensorium. In none of these states do I require a self narrative, a story line, a way of mediating reality through my fantasies of me. They are all reality. I am perfectly functional in all of them. It's just a continuum of awareness within primary reality.

Mark, I'm not doing a good job of explaining myself. I'm not arguing for any kind of duality or that there are two different versions of reality. I was trying to use your metaphor and ended up butchering it. Sorry about that. All I was trying to say is that there appear to be a mediated and an unmediated version of one reality. One most people live in all day, day in and day out. The other is the same version but unmediated by the stories and mind affects you mentioned. I think we agree on the important stuff and.... now, for a few days I'm going to take the advice of Brad Warner and just sit down and shut up. I have this huge desire to practice a lot right now and yet I'm traveling for four days... and those two things don't mix well except when you are actually in an airplane or your hotel room - which is where I am now.

Later...