How do you know?

Hi Kenneth,

I wasn't sure whether to post here or on the original thread.
Could you say more about what is giving you the sense that this strata is not conforming to your expectations. For example the Malaysian master pointing this out to you may have determined the outcome.
I can see how the Jhana's being an experiential refinement might objectify this. Would you saying all 20 are a progressive refinement?

Hi Gary,

These are great questions, and very hard to answer. It's possible that every experience we have is random and chaotic and we just fill in the context in real time to make ourselves feel secure. On the other hand, I doubt it. There seems to be some structure to our experience. There are rules; we can do some things and we can't do some other things. For example, I can't fly or change the form of my body (unless I visit an astral realm, but that's another discussion. Our ordinary world is the one in which Newtonian physics apply.)

One way to talk about this is to use the human body as analogy. How do I know that I'm not just scripting the appearance of two arms, two legs, a torso, and a head? My best answer is that I can't get it to be any other way. It's a similar situation with jhanas. Once you have the capacity to experience them, you see them arise, time after time, in the same invariable sequence. Although you can jump from any jhana to any other, thus short-circuiting the sequence, you know that you are manipulating your experience. Whenever you don't manipulate, no matter how sleepy or distracted you get, the jhanas arise in their own way, and you are back to accepting them as they are.

That's what I mean when I say that the strata of mind have about as much reality as the human body.

"... you know that you are manipulating your experience."

I can actually vouch for this (see my "Stages on the Way to Cessaation" thread here). Doing what Kenneth is talking about is a product of willful intent, not chance, not chaos interpreted as meaning. It's like deciding to get up and drive to work.

Kenneth,

Were you aware of the jhanas in this form before you saw them demonstrated? It would be one thing if you were examining your experience without any preconceptions - that is, if you didn't know about the jhanas, and you noticed 20 different strata - then you opened a book one day and said "Well how about that?" I'm guessing that's not the case though - that you already knew about the jhanas and believed in them on some level, or had some kind of expectation that they might show up. Just like anyone reading your views on this may.

This kind of complication of working with trance states is not an issue of yogic prowess - on the contrary, the most skilled yogis might be more susceptible.

Are you familiar with the concept of false memories and how they can be created? Its a very relevant point here as we are dealing with absorption states. Let me tell you a few stories if you are interested...

By the way, it's interesting that you keep using the metaphor of the human body. It occurs to me that this is not as universal as it sounds, after all, not everyone is born with 4 arms and legs. Have you ever read "Metaphors we live by" by George Lakoff? The idea of embodiment has some interesting applications here. Have you noticed how this particular model uses a metaphor from embodied experience - namely the Up is more spiritual, down more mundane?

But to the story - as you may know hypnosis can inadvertently create false memories through indirect suggestion - to the extent that people who have been hypnotized are not allowed to testify in court. This is a true story: Once there was a Christian minister of a large church who had a daughter. His daughter had some issues related to school, and the father sent her to see the Christian counselor who had recently been hired by the church. She had her session with him and resolved the main problem, so then the counselor asked if there was anything else that she wanted to talk about. She said "Yes, my father has been molesting me." So the Christian counselor saw her for over a year, and all this stuff came out about ritual Satanic abuse, sexual torture, including full intercourse. Well the minister was fired and put in jail, his wife divorced him, and a huge trial commenced. As it turns out, the daughter was rather homely, and during the trial, the mother said to herself, "This girl has never had sex!" She brought her to an OBGYN who confirmed that the girl had an intact hymen. Well the case was dismissed, the minister was rehired and reunited with both his wife and daughter. They sued the counselor for a million dollars and won. But to this day, the girl is plagued by the memories of sexual abuse.

Psychotherapy patients are well known to dream to please their therapist. If you are working under a master with a particular map - wouldn't you?

Thank you all for your interesting thoughts and comments.

About Jhanas, I would just like to add that the jhanas seem to be described by other mystical traditions that have absolutely no connection with Buddhism.

What I find fascinating with the Buddhist Jhanas is that they are connected, while one leads to the next. Their are not considered to be absolute states, but are used to purify the mind to finer and finer states. If we study the Satipatthana Sutta, we can see how the system works, calming kaya, vedana, citta, etc. Fascinating technology that I have not been able to find in any other mystical tradition.

Nevertheless, at least from a Zen point of view, jhanas are still very subtle thoughts. The trick is then to turn around and find "who enters and exists the jhanas? From what I can tell, what may happen when we turn back to observe the observer is completely beyond imagination (and self-suggestion).

"Nevertheless, at least from a Zen point of view, jhanas are still very subtle thoughts. The trick is then to turn around and find "who enters and exists the jhanas? From what I can tell, what may happen when we turn back to observe the observer is completely beyond imagination (and self-suggestion).
"

Hi Alex,

Would you know the benefits of doing this equiry in jhana? This I would like to know after I understand the enquiry.
The phrase observe the observer is often used, I thought it might be akin to what I have called observing the mind. That being, observe the mind, the aparent observer. The problem is these (legitimate) phrases get used and for people like myself who have not had much exposer to them we can get lost. This is ok except in this case I am interested in the detail of what you are saying here.

For you to say "observing the observer is completly beyond imagination" I am getting the idea this is not about observing mind .

Hi,

Yes, when Zen records talk about observing mind, they often refer to Chih-I's Chi Kuan (samatha-vipassana) method. The idea is to fist practice samatha observing the source of thoughts or focusing on the breath. This leads to a calm state, eventually to the jhanas. At this stage, the mind becomes soft and flexible, ready for vipassana. Then, one is to observe the arising and passing away of thoughts to gain insight into their emptiness (shunya). They are empty, yet they appear just so (tathata). Now one is to see these two aspects which is called contemplating the mean.

Still, there is a duality between the observer (whatever it is) and the observed. One is then to turn back and try to find who or what is observing emptiness, suchness and the mean.This is called returning. This is basically the idea of "observing the observer".

In his Fukanzazengi Dogen explains it saying: "learn the backward step that turns your light inward to illuminate your self. Body and mind of themselves will drop away, and your original face will be manifest".

So, I had tried that but would generally get headaches without much results. However, coming down from samadhi (trained with Kenneth who is a wonderful teacher BTW), what happened blew my mind: thoughts, sense perceptions, body sensations where still there (my eyes were opened), but the sense of "self" had completely vanished.

I had read about that, but it had always been very abstract. What is interesting is that people from many different religious background described the same experience (and much higher stages of course). I therefore cannot see it as an induced or fabricated state. I was recently reading Ramana Maharishi and was surprised to see that he uses Zen expressions almost word for word (and I doubt that he ever read Zen books).

Hi Gary,

Alex has written a detailed account of some of his recent practice experience, including jhana, the "Witness," and rigpa. Highly recommended reading for all dharma explorers.

kennethfolkdharma.wetpaint.com/page/Case+Study%3A+Alex

"Thank you all for your interesting thoughts and comments.

About Jhanas, I would just like to add that the jhanas seem to be described by other mystical traditions that have absolutely no connection with Buddhism.

Nevertheless, at least from a Zen point of view, jhanas are still very subtle thoughts. The trick is then to turn around and find "who enters and exists the jhanas? From what I can tell, what may happen when we turn back to observe the observer is completely beyond imagination (and self-suggestion).
"

You're welcome.
I could provide more examples of how vivid experiences - literally as real as the experience of one's own body - can be created with the barest of suggestions or tertiary references either intentionally or by accident especially with trance states...

On the other hand, I once met a Navajo medicine man who gifted me with a "Talking Stick." The basic idea is that when you have the stick, you talk. When someone else has the stick you listen. The medicine man emphasized that it was more important to listen than to talk, which I firmly believe.

I will say that descriptions of the samatha jhanas and the formless realms seemed pretty familiar to me when I heard about them...

So in that spirit, I have a few questions: 1. When you mention other traditions with no connection to Buddhism - are you referencing the samatha jhanas or the nanas? If the former, I'd like to hear which ones.

Kenneth, you say that these 20 strata represent the structure of the mind and are independent of imagination or content. Are you claiming that they are experienced as structure? - because that seems like subtle content to me. To me implicit structure can't really be directly experienced, it must be inferred. Finally, you seem to be saying these jhanas exist apart from our ability to imagine them, or be created by suggestion. How can this be known? Can it be known?

If we consider this a hypothesis, what kind of test would disprove it? Could it, in theory, be disproved?

Finally, you say that these jhana will come up, in order, if one does not attempt to manipulate their experience. This seems paradoxical to me. The moment one sits with the intent to meditate, one is already manipulating their experience.

Hi Haqan,

Frankly speaking, I think that it is pointless to try to prove mysticism with logic and reason. We are all aware that the mind can produce experiences that can seem more real than everyday life. Now the question is to know what we want to do with it. Different traditions mapped these experiences according to their own paradigm. From what I can tell, mystics like St Theresa of Avila did experience the joy and ecstatic rapture of the first Buddhist Jhanas and interpreted it in her own way. This is just one example; we could take Ramakrishna or even Aleister Crowley who experienced some of the Buddhist samatha Jhanas. Similar practice leads to similar results.

Yes the mind can produce amazing experiences. Our common interest is to learn how to trigger these experiences or states at will. To do that, we need to follow a certain protocol. There is a protocol for jhanas and a protocol for vipassana, as there are protocols for inducing lucid dreams, out-of-body experiences, magical evocations or synchronicities. These protocols create results that can be mapped. These maps are not the absolute truth, but navigating tools; tools of a very sophisticated technology that evolved from early shamanic cultures to sophisticated post-modern yogic and magical systems.

"
Yes the mind can produce amazing experiences. Our common interest is to learn how to trigger these experiences or states at will. To do that, we need to follow a certain protocol. There is a protocol for jhanas and a protocol for vipassana, as there are protocols for inducing lucid dreams, out-of-body experiences, magical evocations or synchronicities. These protocols create results that can be mapped. These maps are not the absolute truth, but navigating tools; tools of a very sophisticated technology that evolved from early shamanic cultures to sophisticated post-modern yogic and magical systems.
"

Granted. You're preaching to the choir a bit with that one. We *know* the protocols work. Curiously, they *all* seem to work - even the ones you make up. This indicates an underlying reality which is very slippery indeed. While our natural tendency as humans is to think of things in concrete terms, it is simply not the case in this particular area, and we must fight the temptation to ascribe to spiritual realism, as comfortable as it is.

Far from being pointless, rational examination of mysticism and the attempt to understand it from that point of view has eminently pragmatic consequences. Just as developments in biological science lead to innovations in medical technology, so new understandings about the nature of mystical experience lead to innovations in the protocols and techniques. I reference an article I wrote in 2004 in the "What's your endgame?" thread which provides examples of some of the innovations I am personally responsible for (and can attest to the efficacy of) when we move past the energy model and begin to think beyond the apparent nature of mystical experience.

"All protocols seem to work even the ones you make up" - yes that's the great disovery of ZOS, Peter Carroll, R.A.Wilson and other adepts like you. I will read your interesting article.

Speaking about NLP and anchors, what do you think of Jason Newcomb's work?

"
Speaking about NLP and anchors, what do you think of Jason Newcomb's work?
"

I bought the 21st Century Mage when it came out, and remember thinking that he was on the right track, but still very bound by the symbolism of the Western Magickal Tradition. I also wasn't terribly interested in the Abramelin operation at the time. I never bought the "New Hermetics" because from what I could tell about it, it didn't seem, well, advanced enough. One of the frustrations of being an occultist is that that almost every single title is geared towards people who have absolutely no experience with the subject matter, and you can only read so much of that. I just read an excerpt from his version of the Bornless One Ritual (a very relevant ritual to this discussion board) and it's good enough to merit the price fo the book. Phil Farber is another one in this vein, but Phil tends to go the other direction and psychologize everything. I don't want to be too critical, because I applaud any attempt at this kind of synthesis - but I see some places that his HGA system could be tweaked. But that's a whole other topic. Alan and Duncan on their website The Baptist's Head are really into this approach to enlightenment. I'm all about monasticisms, and I definitely think it would get you across the A&P.

I don't think it spends enough time developing the skills necessary to perform the operation successfully, especially for a beginner.

I fully agree with you. I find Newcomb's "The Book of Magick Power" very good however. It can be a good supplement to Peter Carroll's "Liber Null" for those interested by this approach. As a matter of fact, if I mentioned the HGA, it is because it is one of the subjects of an ongoing email discussion with Alan Chapman.

When you say "I'm all about monasticisms, and I definitely think it would get you across the A&P" what do you mean exactly?

Hi Haquan,

Great discussion. Thanks for the provocative ideas and probing questions. Your wrote:

'[The 20 strata of mind seem] like subtle content to me.'-Haquan

That's right. The entire manifest universe can be seen as a thought that arises and disappears within awareness. You can see this by practicing vipassana meditation. This is what I call 1st Gear practice. Having seen this, it is possible to wonder about the awareness that forms the backdrop for the universe. When you turn the light of awareness back on itself, all of manifestation appears to be known by a witnessing consciousness, aka 'the Witness.' To be able to see this apparent witness in this moment is what I call 2nd Gear Practice and is a monumental step toward seeing the whole picture. The witness itself, however, is also a subtle construction of mind. In fact, it is the most subtle construction of all and is present in every moment of conventional experience. Unnoticed, it causes the perception that things are happening to "me." Clearly seen and taken as object, it leads to a transpersonal experience of pure subjectivity. Everything is seen as Self. When even the subtle subject/object duality of the 'Witness' collapses, there is only awareness/knowing, referring back to no one. From this Absolute point of view, the manifest universe and the knowing of it are 'not two.' This is what I call 3rd gear practice. (cont)

edit: content & spelling

All three of these practices work together. It isn't necessary to deny one in order to practice and understand another. To do so, in fact, would be a category error. During a discussion of the apparent structure of mind, which is a 1st Gear practice, there is no need to appeal to the Absolute perspective; we aren't talking about that. As an example, if I were to go to the doctor with a pain in the upper right quadrant of my abdomen, the doctor might suspect that there is something wrong with my gall bladder. This is useful information based on the apparent structure of the body. If, on the other hand, I told the doctor that I have a pain but don't know where, because the body is just a subtle thought arising and disappearing within awareness, the doctor would have a difficult time diagnosing and treating my condition. In this case, my category error (invoking the Absolute in a situation that requires relative knowledge), might cost me a great deal of discomfort and possibly even my life when my gall bladder finally ruptures. With regard to dharma discussions, the consequences of category mistakes are not so dire; they just make for clunky communication. (cont)

Like a rainbow, the human mind can be seen to have a stratified structure. As in the case of the rainbow, this structure can only be seen under special conditions. To see the stratified nature of the mind, you must train in the systematic observation of the mind. Now, here is an extremely important point: the ability to clearly see the strata of mind depends not only upon skill in observation, but also upon a developmental process. Just looking in a particular way will only reveal what is there; the stratified nature of mind emerges as it develops. The common progression is to begin with just one or perhaps four jhanas and add more over time as they develop. But as soon as you have as many as two, the pattern is in place and is undeniable: the first jhana arises before the second. It is 'lower' on the spectrum. You can learn to jump to the second, thereby bypassing the first, but the natural structure remains. First jhana is first and second jhana is second. You can't get it to be any other way any more than you can change the sequence of colors in a rainbow. None of this conflicts in any way with the deeper understanding that the entire manifest universe arises and disappears within awareness in each moment. This is what I mean when I say that the mind has a built-in structure.

edit: punctuation

Once we agree that we are discussing ways of using the relative nature of mind to deconstruct the mind's apparent solidity, we can talk about ways to map that apparent structure. Another example: in the manifest universe, we acknowledge that there is an electromagnetic spectrum, which includes the various frequencies of visible light. Normally, we don't see this spectrum and don't consider it relevant. But under special conditions, e.g., a rainbow in the sky, the structure of the spectrum of visible light is as plain as day. On one side of the rainbow is red. Next to it is orange. Next to orange is yellow, followed by green, etc. No matter how you squint or turn your head, the sequence of colors is invariable. This stratified appearance is made manifest by the way the spectrum of visible light interacts with our organs of perception. You can't get it to be any other way. Appeals to the Absolute perspective ('colors are just subtle thoughts with no inherent existence') won't fly here. The rainbow is as it is. (cont)

Kenneth's posts 16-19. RE: How do you know?

Wonderful, Kenneth! Once again, you state the case in an easy-to-understand way without recourse to a lot of specialized terminology or any of the many forms of obscurantism that often creep into discussions of this type.

This makes me so happy -- I am dancing!

Alex,
Briefly, because I don't want to sidetrack the discussion too much, I've developed a particular method of practicing over the years. I tend to prefer a low impact inhibitory gnosis style for daily practice (regular meditation, or autohypnosis involving PMR) with a once a week excitatory gnosis 'blow out session' (drumming, chanting, etc). I also tend to prefer to perform inhibitory gnosis before excitatory gnosis for reasons related to how the autonomic nervous system functions. I only do excitatory gnosis infrequently because a. you will tend to exhaust yourself over time. b. one becomes relatively desensitized to whatever method one is using '“ for instance if one is doing daily drumming, it doesn't take long before it's taking a couple of hours to actually achieve gnosis (one-pointed-conscioussness).
I also think that it's a good idea to have periods of relatively intense practice, a couple of times a year lasting weeks to months '“ these periods often involve restrictions (diet, etc) and daily practices. The Abramelin operation is technically a 6 month monasticism. Retreats serve this same function for most Buddhists, but one can create this kind of structure at home as well.

Hi Kenneth,
First of all I would like to express my sincere gratitude for this opportunity to exchange ideas with dedicated practitioners like you. Thanks to everyone for their willingness to discuss these kinds of ideas, and to help me learn! This is of immeasurable value for me.

I don't think that I'm guilty of the kind of category error that you are pointing out. What I'm pointing out is something more akin to the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis. It's that our underlying personal and cultural assumptions have a significant impact on our underlying experience. While my own experience seems to suggest that mystical experience is even less substantial than a rainbow, let's start with that analogy. I like the analogy of a rainbow, because I tend to see what y'all are calling 'jhanas' as a spectrum of experience. Now here in the West, we see 7 colors in the rainbow: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet. One could even say that there are seven strata to the rainbow '“ and if you observe closely, they arise out of each other, in that order '“ it's apparently self-evident.

But Newton originally named the colors of the spectrum because of a belief dating back to the Pre-Socratic philosophers 'that there was a connection between the colors, the musical notes, the known objects in the solar system, and the days of the week. The human eye is relatively insensitive to indigo's frequencies, and some otherwise well-sighted people cannot distinguish indigo from blue and violet. For this reason some commentators, including Isaac Asimov, have suggested that indigo should not be regarded as a color in its own right but merely as a shade of blue or violet. Continued...

Furthemore, cultures with a different base number to their cosmological system '“ such as the Chinese who tend to like 8 better than 7 '“ might choose different schema, including a shade in between orange or red, for example. Come to think of it, the Chinese tend to lump blue and green together in a single category '青'and see those colors as shades of each other. This culture then might come up with a completely different schema of 'strata' that would be equally self-evident to them. But when you really look closely, the colors of the rainbow flow into each other smoothly'¦
The example of right upper quadrant pain is a good one, and by no means am I suggesting that maps should not be referenced for practical reasons '“ if someone is having a problem with their practice for instance. But I should point out, that in this example, if the same patient were to consult a practitioner of TCM, that practitioner might have a very different formulation and treatment plan. He might, for instance see the problem as an imbalance in wood chi, caused by pulmonary issue (metal) and prescribe a dietary intervention (presumably low fat diet) and acupuncture '“ and he might not be 'wrong.' In a certain way, one can never step outside of their cognitive structures and assumptions, so part of what I suggest is that you acquire as many different maps as possible, so that one may begin to see 'between' them. In a certain way, it's useful someone in the healing professions to be able to see things from both a TCM and an allopathic medicine point of view, for example.

I also think that things are a lot more malleable than you say - the content of our experience may be quite dependent on the structure we assign it, that like water, our mind takes the form it is given. I could be wrong about that in this particular case though. I'm open to finding out differently.

Alex, I forgot to answer the second part of your question. After a great deal of consideration I've decided that it's probably useful to look at things in three general categories - A&P, Dark Night, Fruition. I didn't arrive at that lightly either, and used to think the whole bit was scripted. After 70+ emails back and forth with Alan and Duncan, I finally conceded a probable special status to "fruition", and decided pure mystical pursuits and paths deserved another look. I have thought that the Western Magickal Tradition and other energy based systems like Qi Gong excel at producing experiences that correspond to the A&P, but I'm not sure how good they are at getting to fruition - which I believe may be an exception to all rules, a singularity of sorts, a transcendence of experience itself. My concern with Newcomb's version of the Abramelin operation is that that for inexperienced practitioners they might confuse their first profound unitative experience or alteration of consciousness with the end of the road. Sorry about all the posts, folks...