How do you know?

Hi Haquan,
You wrote:
"....fruition - which I believe may be an exception to all rules, a singularity of sorts, a transcendence of experience itself."

Bingo.

This is a very important insight.

The jhanas, the Arising & Passing, etc. are all categorically to be known as experiences, with all that this implies about their impermanence, ultimate unsatisfactoriness, and lack of anything like a self-nature (or, truly, Buddha-Nature either).

What Kenneth calls "the simplest thing" can be "known" tacitly but cannot be experienced. Chasing after experiences of bliss, unity and so forth are, in the final analysis, only more instances of seeking.

Recognizing what is always already the case is the transformation itself.

"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
"

Hi Haquan,

With your investigation it going to get harder to make ever finer distinctions, because for the purpose of objective investigation the experience and the desciption of it cannot be separated. We can get better as the terms of communication are defined (sounds like hard work, but as you have said you enjoy it!). As you have pointed out individual variations must be acknowledged and variations apply to groups with commonality for example differing cultures. So there are two areas of possible investigation the first ( your contribution ) is to discover all these differences with the aim of becoming more precise. The second is to investigate the commonality that exists with the vast majority (Kenneths investigation which is easier) . Kenneth points to this and uses the analogy of the body saying we all have a body. Actually it is probably more than an analogy due to the coupling of mind / body. Back to the point ... Kenneth mentions 20 Strata, colors of the rainbow, with the focus on the commonality, the exact number of colors or strata in ones experience is third place to the fact that first of all they exist and secondly they are remarkably similar between individuals (eg even 7 colors is close to 8 ).

Both investigations bring something to the mix, the methods that work for most will most "probably" work for me, I have a quirk people with my quirk do this to make it work.

[edit] because commonality likes to make things common, this investiagtion also tends to accept the structure with less concern for how it got there or how to make it different.

After walking from my last post I realised I have sublty missed the point of what Haquan is saying.
In a practical sense I believe he is primarliy referring to the structures setup by the various teachers or traditions.
As I have edited above teaching neccesarily inferrs a commonality and the process promotes the setting up of structures to give the predicted results. The teacher does not concern themselves from where the structure comes they wittingly or unwittingly put them in place and work with them.
Does hours of meditation lay down a structure or was the structure already there, the answer is obviously yes to some structures being put in place. So excepting the structures put in place while practicing there was also an undeniable commonality of structures.
As a side point, the point of practice is to ultimately see through all structures including those setup in practice. This after all would be the very definition of the unconditioned, that is it is NOT conditioned. So there is some validity in not being concerned for how the structure are placed. As Haquan has said something like "thats okay that the structure be there".

[ edit] I think I got to it before anyone read it.

Hi Garyth,
To some extent this discussion is of more interest to cartographers than travelers, as it were. As I mentioned, theoretical advances often do lead to practical innovations - it's simply unclear what those might be at this point in the conversation. From a certain point of view, if your only goal is to travel from Las Angeles to NYC, and everyone is selling a different map, it's probably ok to get a regular road atlas. Unfortunately, that analogy doesn't completely capture the situation - when we "buy a map" in this endeavor, we are not only getting a map, but usually specifying a mode of travel and a guide as well.

So the practical upshot of all this at this point is: 1. The quality of the guide and the mode of travel is more important than the particular map used (pick a good teacher based on your intuitive sense without reference to the particular tradition, and secondarily when looking at traditions, look at the diversity and quality of their techniques). 2. It's ok to steal or borrow techniques from other traditions - though one should try to understand their use within the context of their own tradition. 3. Don't get too hung up on the concrete details of any particular map. 4. There is no reason why one can't switch between traditions (as in the RiMe school) - if one practices mainly within the Theravada tradition, why not go on a Zen retreat, to stir things up. 5. All the techniques of practical magick have application, and the same considerations regarding sorcerous design apply.

I know that may be a bit underwhelming, but there may be more developments, depending on how the rest of this dialectic goes. From the standpoint of being a guide, there are further practical points including ramifications in terms of assessing the development of someone who has progressed without any maps, and the helpfulness of familiarity with comparative mythology, dreamwork, and Jung.

"I know that may be a bit underwhelming, but there may be more developments, depending on how the rest of this dialectic goes.
"

Not underwhelming at all. You make some very good points. Of course all things are to be balanced, but I tend to think generally there is too much attachment to ones belief in the "right" method. A view that adds some balance thereby detaching from the beliefs or methods helps now and in the end game when all structures are to be seen for what they are.

Perhaps there should be some caution in that these structures take time to develop and it would not be benefical to opt out of one set when the rewards are close at hand.

For me practice experience (mine) is illuminating in regard to this discussion because I purposefully set out not to pay attention to maps. Yes, I read MCTB but the map part of it sounded like gibberish at the time. I paid no heed. So I went about following the practice instructions as best I could. Advance a few years and, lo and behold, in messages here Kenneth is telling me I'm experiencing many of the things described in MCTB, better described in Kenneth's words here. So while it's no doubt true that experience, or better said the interpretation of experience, follows the maps one knows, it's also true that the maps follow one's experience.

And the experience of Kenneth's 20 strata of mind is just as described -- you start at one and get to the others in the same order every time. I've been paying close attention to this for the past several months. Even if, as I have done, you stop at the "top" or somewhere in between, you will fall back through the other strata whether you're meditating at the time or not.

I get a huge rush of confidence over this. It gives me courage and patience as I ponder the next developments in my practice. I'm still not a map maven but now I get the maps in a way that I didn't before.

Oh: Cessation/fruition = no experience. It's restarting the universe.

"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'¦"

I was reflecting on this. '青' is indicates not only blue and green, but also black. Moreover it carries a connotation of 'profundity' and 'mysteriousness'. Phrases you'll see it in include, '青龍' describing a dragon and 青海 describing the sea. It seems to me not that ancient Chinese cosmology saw blue, green, and black as blending into one another or as shades of one another, but rather that the character 青 may have developed to describe phenomena with a particular profound or deep quality. I think the sea or ocean is a perfect example. We can all see 'blue' 'green' 'black' in the colors of the sea.

I don't mean to say that different people(s) do not divide or imagine the world in contrasting ways. They most certainly do. But this particular example is interesting to me.

Chinese does have very specific words for the colors blue 藍, green 綠, and black 黑. and people do not mistake one for the other. But it seems to me that 青 is almost about more than a color and is about a particular quality (of mysteriousness, profundity, depth) that is often associated with various colors. So, I suspect that in the context of our discussion this example might not really stand.

Another interesting point: spectrographs measure electromagnetic radiation in terms of the numeric values of their wavelengths in nanometers. All spectrographs, to my knowledge, agree. Thus you could configure a computer-activated lock to respond to light of 535 nm wavelength. Most English speaking peoples not color-blind would call it 'green'. Of course, as soon as one translates any word to another language it is debatable whether the referent -concept is completely identical. (On the other hand, that's also true for two different speakers of the same language or even the same speaker at different points of time/space/feeling).

Nevertheless, our computer-operated spectrograph will respond to that 535 nm wave no matter who or what shines it.

I suppose I'm saying that there can be a combination between impersonal precision and our socio-cultural-psychological subjective interpretations of that which is precise.

I'm interested in what you'll think of these.

(Also, George Lakoff's Metaphors We Live By, which you mentioned above, was going through my mind during your other topic on Imagination. I've never read it closely, but I think I'm sort of familiar with the basic ideas. I think his points may be very much in line with my sense that all conventional experience is fundamentally metaphorical and thus 'imaginative' in nature. By the time it gets to the 'conventional consciousness' office it's already very much packaged and graffitied all over.)

one more thing on 青. The character itself seems to depict a growing thing. That makes me think of the wood element. And the tendency in chinese cosmology to assign characteristics based on associations within the 五行 (or Five Dynamic Phases). I'm thinking of how Wood, Qing, Youthfulness, and Green are all associated with the same phase of youthful, springtime, bursting out energy. And so the colors of Qing (blue and green) could also be associated on that basis.

Just some thoughts.

Hey Nigel!
Nice points. I've been reading a few posts at a time on this thread and you seem to have summed up my impression of the topic pretty well. R.E conventional experience being imaginative, this really reminds me of the Yogachara model of the three natures. Are you familiar with it?
The paratantra level is impermanence, dependent arising, emptiness-- reality uninterpreted. The vikalpa level is basically an imaginal projection of subject/object relationship, stability, solidity, seperate things, causality, all the factors of conventional experience. The projection is superimposed over the paratantra, the empty continuum. The paranispanna (boy, I think I got that right) is the perfected nature- which I haven't read a very good description of, but which seems to be the realization that the vikalpa process is actually allready subsumed in the paratantra just like everything else so it needn't be suspended to see the paratantra as the practitioner initially believes... again, there seems to be an initial oscillation between the poles reality-illusion which is only transcended with the capacity to live in the paradox of their simultaneity. This pattern seems to be common to all schools that produce realizers.
---Jake

I'm going to have to look all that up, Jake, but while I'm here, and reading over the thread, I noticed that a post here was long overdue.

After working with it for a while, I'm going to have to say that Kenneth's 20 different strata of Mind model is the most elegant I've ever seen. The way he integrates concentration states with stages of insight is powerful and useful, in a way that the theory I presented here and on the Baptist's head is not. Not that mine is bad, but definitely not as useful. At one point on one of the other threads I found myself diagnosing someone using Kenneth's theory, based on the interaction of their experiences and the depth of concentration they found themselves in.

While "a physio-energetic developmental process" may be a metaphor, it's a pretty damned good metaphor.

Hat's off to you, Kenneth!
David

Second that!

Kenneth: Do we know where Buddhaghosa gets the nanas from, what the prior source is of their inclusion in the Vissudimagga? I am going to follow the link you supply and take a look at that, but it is my understanding that the V is a commentary on the Nikayas, so there ought to be a Nikaya source text? Does that make sense?
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"I'm going to have to say that Kenneth's 20 different strata of Mind model is the most elegant I've ever seen." -Haquan

Thank you, David, for that ringing endorsement! I've been thinking lately of presenting the 20 strata of mind in graphic form, maybe using Flash graphics. I envision a drawing of a thermometer. Instead of temperatures, the 20 strata of mind are listed in ascending order, moving "up" the tube. When you mouseover a stratum, more information about it pops up. I don't know how to do this yet, but I should have more free time in January and I'm hoping to be able to get to the project. I think the model could be very intuitive if presented graphically.

As was the case when you and I worked together, I find that people are very quickly able to make connections between this model and their own practice. It makes sense that this should be the case, because the model is just a description of what I see every time I sit, using concepts from the millennia-old models we have inherited from the Buddhists.

I'm very happy to know that you have found the model helpful and that you have used it to help others.

Kenneth

"Do we know where Buddhaghosa gets the nanas from, what the prior source is of their inclusion in the Vissudimagga?" -Han2sen

Hansen, I want to defer this question to some of the more competent scholars in our community. Alex and Adam come to mind, and I know that Daniel has researched these questions. I'll just say that my understanding is that the Visuddhimagha is based on an earlier Chinese text called the Vimuttimagga. The Visuddhimagga uses the Nikayas to support its conclusions, but seems to be more phenomenological in nature. In other words, someone or some group of monks sat around and asked themselves, "what actually happens when I meditate?" He/they then recorded that experience. Only then did they go back and try to find textual support for their "bold assertions." Seen in this light, you could make the case that these two commentaries, the Vimuttimagga and the Visuddhimagga, are more credible than their ostensible source (i.e., the suttas). Yes, I know, that is worthy of a histrionic gasp. But we know that the suttas were finally committed to writing hundreds of years after the death of the historical Buddha. We have no way of knowing how much editing took place in the interim.

More importantly, although the suttas were clearly based on the work of a genius, they are frustratingly lacking in the nitty-gritty details of real life practice. The commentaries are attempts to provide that detail at a high degree of resolution. People like Daniel Ingram and I aspire to continue that trend, adding a few more details and a bit more clarity to an already remarkable body of information. Ultimately, we are talking about what it means to be human. Enlightenment doesn't belong to any tradition or group. It's right here for each of us to discover. To the extent that we can give each other a boost once in awhile, everybody wins.

Kenneth

I am not a comprehensive Pali Text scolar, but as Kenneth says, the Visuddhimagga does appear to be based on the Vimuttimagga, by The Arahat Upatissa, which comes back to us from the Chinese, the original Pali or Sanskrit having been lost. This is the earliest place I find the ñanas, but there are some commentaries in between, and whether or not they appear there is unknown to me. The Vimuttimagga, by the way, is worthwhile reading for those who want more traditional material, and is not so hard as slogging through the Visuddhimagga. However, for those who really want to dig, the introduction to the Vimuttimagga, translation by Rev. N.R.M Ehara, Soma Thera, and Kheminda Thera, states that they Visuddhimagga and Vimuttimagga may go back to some convergent sources and may have even been developed separately based on earlier core sources as competing texts used to justify the bid for supremacy of two rival monasteries for who should hold the post of core defender and promoter of orthodoxy. It mentions not only some possible sources, but also the politics. The discussions of the relationships between them is not for the casually interested, but might be fun reading to realize that competition for positions of honor, supremacy, control of dogma and the like were in full force even between meditators with very high accomplishments and profound learning and knowledge about 1,600-2,000 years ago just as they go on today.

The ñanas are definitely not in the original suttas, as stated above. The Seven Stages of Insight, which are more vague, are found there, however, though they are not as well defined, they are still used today sometimes.

Daniel: Thanks. Strange as it may seem, that helps clear things up for me. I am not a scholar in ancient classical languages, nor in ancient Buddhist texts, however I have a learning difference that never lets me feels comfortable with certain ambiguities that don't seem to bother most people. One pattern that emerges is a bit of history seems to go a long way for me. The 7 stages of Insight didn't click for me right away, I am thankful for your appraisal - but if they are in the suttas that becomes a decent springboard of sorts, and I wouldn't be surprised if the history of these models and discussions originates there.\
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