Survey: Your Definition of Enlightenment

Intellectual understanding is important. It's made my practice much, much more pleasurable and, to be honest, entertaining. There is a very large element of satisfaction that I get from thinking about what's happening when I practice and in speculating about what causes the changes that practice has brought. Are they physical? Biological? Philosophical? Energetic? What is this that I have uncovered? Why does it affect me in this way or in that way, and how? Amazing and fascinating stuff.

But an intellectual understanding hasn't been *required* in my practice. Not once. What always comes first is the sitting. What matters is the experience. The experience. The uncovering of the thing, the truth. A human being simply cannot conceptualize that. To be blunt -- if you find someone using the words "I believe" in describing realization or awakening, you should be very skeptical. Belief is not required. Concepts? Not required. Neither of those things will get you there. It's impossible. They're great for synthesizing and analyzing and appreciating, but that all comes after the experience, and that is indescribable. We have only one choice when we communicate with each other here, and that is to use words. Words are by definition conceptual. So it's a weird conundrum and frustrating for everyone. Words are all we have and yet the minute we use them we lie about the truth.

Ask yourself -- how did that first human to awaken gain their awakening? How does anyone ever do it?

"Although intellectually understanding why you should practice swinging the bat this way instead of that way can help you become a better hitter faster.... The question, if anything, is at what level of sophistication and complexity we should allow concepts to guide practice. ... so long as one is doing some kind of effective practice diligently and not being overly hindered by their concepts."

Very articulate! Mikael, IMO, what we think and say has pragmatic value-- as Brian points out so clearly here-- and also poetic value, in that some sayings and concepts can "evoke" an indwelling, natural understanding which although built-in to our consciousness may yet be unappreciated. It seems to me that "nondual" traditions such as Zen and Dzogchen for example often employ more poetic pointers, while traditions such as Vippassana often employ more pragmatic pointers. But in any case, of course, the pointer is just that.
One tricky thing about communicating about such matters as practice, liberation and enlightenment is that two people may share extremely similar direct understandings yet express them with very different pointers. Since all of our thoughts and words are basically abstract, we can always find fault with another's thoughts and words.
Particularly considering the differences between the basic Tibetan model of liberation/enlightenment and the more theravada-advaita style model which is the mainstream on the Forum, similar misunderstandings and disagreements continue to crop up. Until enough participants on the forum who come from each background take the time to really understand each other past the rhetoric and disputes, the differences between the misunderstandings and the actual disagreements may be elusive. Also, some folks will gravitate to more coherant traditional models, while others will apply many different methods and hold a looser, modern or post-modern theory of how they hang together.

"One tricky thing about communicating about such matters as practice, liberation and enlightenment is that two people may share extremely similar direct understandings yet express them with very different pointers. Since all of our thoughts and words are basically abstract, we can always find fault with another's thoughts and words.

Particularly considering the differences between the basic Tibetan model of liberation/enlightenment and the more theravada-advaita style model which is the mainstream on the Forum, similar misunderstandings and disagreements continue to crop up. Until enough participants on the forum who come from each background take the time to really understand each other past the rhetoric and disputes, the differences between the misunderstandings and the actual disagreements may be elusive. Also, some folks will gravitate to more coherant traditional models, while others will apply many different methods and hold a looser, modern or post-modern theory of how they hang together. "

Well said, Jake!

Taking the time to really understand our shared experience really cuts down on the frustration that occurs when concepts clash. Let's keep that spirit alive here in the forum!

Jackson

"But an intellectual understanding hasn't been *required* in my practice. Not once. What always comes first is the sitting."

But how did you know to sit in the first place, instead of leaving it up to chance or grace, or instead of doing a rain dance? You had an intellectual understanding. "If I sit, then ____; I want to bring about _____; so I will sit". The valuable message you are passing along is itself an intellectual understanding (about the limitations of intellectual understanding) that will help people to practice better. Understanding is not all about pleasure and entertainment, it's about pragmatism too. Sitting for 2 hours is practical; having the kind of understanding that will get you the same experiential benefits in 1 hour instead of 2 is also practical in the same way; having the kind of understanding that this kind of sitting will not get you enlightened, and you should be doing that kind of sitting instead, is more valuable than 10,000 hours of doing that dead-end sitting.

Understanding things in an explanatory sense may be superfluous much of the time, but understanding things in a causal "if this, then that" sense is what informs any practice instruction. Some knowledge of this type may be largely superfluous as well, but some of it is basic and indispensible.

Yes. I was responding specifically to Mikaelz's references, brian2, in which it appears to me he is saying concepts are required of awakening. As I said in my comment, concepts are wonderful. Words (concepts) are necessary for many, may things... but not for everything.

EDIT for clarity: I'm trying but probably not doing very well, to distinguishing between thinking and/or strategizing about practice (those concepts, as brian2 says, that are very useful) versus actually doing the meditation practice. In that actual practice thoughts are often a hindrance, as we all know. Sometimes I'm pretty ham-handed at communicating.

"
Yes. I was responding specifically to Mikaelz's references, brian2, in which it appears to me he is saying concepts are required of awakening. As I said in my comment, concepts are wonderful. Words (concepts) are necessary for many, may things... but not for everything.

EDIT for clarity: I'm trying but probably not doing very well, to distinguishing between thinking and/or strategizing about practice (those concepts, as brian2 says, that are very useful) versus actually doing the meditation practice. In that actual practice thoughts are often a hindrance, as we all know. Sometimes I'm pretty ham-handed at communicating.

"

I'm not saying that non-dual insight requires concepts, so if non-dual insight is your definition of enlightenment then you can ignore me

I'm saying non-dual insight is not the end. Once you get non-dual non-conceptual insight, there is a de-sync between experience and view. This is a problem because dualistic tendencies are still there since conceptual understanding has not been integrated; there has to be a sync between view and experience or else non-dual awareness is reified (subtly and automatically without you realizing it) into an ultimate subject, such as a 'container in which all phenomena are in', or 'the ever-present background' -- but it's not real. It is - just like the I -- an illusion which is dependent on subtle mental constructs. Hence the need to analyze experience according to the negating methods of 'anatta' and 'dependent origination' to remove the tendency to reify awareness as an ultimate subject in which objects are inseparate from and thus see awareness as simply transience. If you don't sync your view and experience then you won't realize this is happening. Non-dual non-conceptual experience does not replace our (conceptual) deeply rooted framework of seeing dualistically and inherently,

"Very articulate! Mikael, IMO, what we think and say has pragmatic value-- as Brian points out so clearly here-- and also poetic value, in that some sayings and concepts can "evoke" an indwelling, natural understanding which although built-in to our consciousness may yet be unappreciated. It seems to me that "nondual" traditions such as Zen and Dzogchen for example often employ more poetic pointers, while traditions such as Vippassana often employ more pragmatic pointers. But in any case, of course, the pointer is just that.
One tricky thing about communicating about such matters as practice, liberation and enlightenment is that two people may share extremely similar direct understandings yet express them with very different pointers. Since all of our thoughts and words are basically abstract, we can always find fault with another's thoughts and words.
Particularly considering the differences between the basic Tibetan model of liberation/enlightenment and the more theravada-advaita style model which is the mainstream on the Forum, similar misunderstandings and disagreements continue to crop up. Until enough participants on the forum who come from each background take the time to really understand each other past the rhetoric and disputes, the differences between the misunderstandings and the actual disagreements may be elusive. Also, some folks will gravitate to more coherant traditional models, while others will apply many different methods and hold a looser, modern or post-modern theory of how they hang together.
"

palabra

"palabra"-- telecaster

[Didn't know you were accurate in two languages, Mike.] Indeed.

'The kids' are doing far better than 'all right.' It goes to show that there are many kinds of 'beginner's mind'-- including a drive to deep study of every sort, and not excluding a need to use one's own most expressive language to say 'what can't be said'.

It is amazing how quickly and surreptitiously a group-specific orthodoxy takes hold, and 'defining' something comes to mean having the last word, effectively putting an end to the conversation in favor of the 'right' conclusion.

Hi Mikael,

I grew up in Southern California and we went to the beach a lot, so I often saw surfers riding the waves. I was in the water a lot, rode Styrofoam surfboards, and even got on a surfboard a few times but was never able to stand up. Now if I became an aficionado of Surfing Magazine, I might gain a lot of theoretical knowledge about surfing and if I were really up in my head I might form rigid opinions about what high level surfing is and is not. I might even go an an online surfing forum and start giving advice to the big wave surfers. This would be ironic, because if I am serious about surfing, I should be interested in improving my own skills. And if the big wave surfers are willing to guide me, patiently answering any questions I might have, it makes sense for me to stop talking and try to soak up all I can from people who ride big waves on a daily basis. After all, who knows how long my good fortune in having access to these people will last? There aren't so many forums where they hang out and are willing to talk openly about their experience and answer questions from beginners.

There a a handful of big wave surfers on this forum. Every one of them has shown that they will answer sincere questions. I urge you to take advantage of this unusual opportunity.

(cont)

(cont)

I sense that you have a real concern, but are having trouble putting it into question form. If I may, I'd like to take a crack at first translating it into a question and then answering it as clearly as I can.

Question: Kenneth, is there a conflict between your teaching and the post I quoted earlier (# 63) describing the importance of going beyond the preference "to rest fully in naked awareness."

Answer: No, there's no conflict. From context, I gather that "naked awareness" refers to what I call the Witness, which is a state in which everything seems to be subject. All the objects of attention are see to be unimportant aspects of this big Self. This is what AugustLeo and I have referred to as Perspective of Consciousness (PoC) 5 on the Strawman Model of Awakening. Beyond this is PoC 6 which is the full integration of subject, object, and awareness, which can be distinguished, but never separated. This is the paradox of the awakened experience and is almost universally acknowledged by those who have access to it to be impossible to reconcile through logic while simultaneously being perfectly ordinary. Since it is impossible to reconcile through logic, one must experience it for oneself in order to have anything intelligent to say about it. To have an opinion about it one way or the other before having actually seen it is counterproductive, both for the author of the opinion and for those to whom s/he is expressing it. This bring us back to the importance of pragmatic, rather than purely theoretical dharma. Theory can support practice, but it can't replace it.

"I'm not saying that non-dual insight requires concepts, so if non-dual insight is your definition of enlightenment then you can ignore me " -- Mikaelz

Ah, okay, Mikael. That's what I was asklng you about yesterday. That's a good clarification. But I don't want to ignore you, I want to understand what it is you're saying, and why.

Kate, you are one of the big wave surfers. You have consistently and accurately described what it feels like to surf the big waves. And even though your conceptual framework is very different from mine, I recognize what you are pointing to. It lines up with my own experience. Therefore, I take you seriously when you talk. I like meritocracy. This seems like common sense to me. People who do not yet have the experience are actually the raison d'etre of this website! The last thing I want to do is alienate them. But that doesn't mean that their opinions carry a lot of weight. They are here to learn, not to form opinions.

You wrote: "It goes to show that there are many kinds of 'beginner's mind'-- including a drive to deep study of every sort, and not excluding a need to use one's own most expressive language to say 'what can't be said'."

Beginner's mind, as I understand it, is openness. It is not the forming of opinions about things that have not been experienced, which would in fact be the polar opposite of beginner's mind.

(cont)

to the big wave surfers:
do you think there is a relationship between krishnamurti's ideas about when "the observer becomes the observed" and 2nd or even 1st gear practice?
i always thought he was talking about becoming aware that the thing watching was also being watched which served to eliminate some inherent tension/dukha

also, i just sat. i think i noticed something new: that the feeling or awareness of me watching or feeling something is actually a lightning quick created image in my brain done out of years of habit to create a false sense of, maybe, continuity?

(cont)

Kate, you wrote: "It is amazing how quickly and surreptitiously a group-specific orthodoxy takes hold, and 'defining' something comes to mean having the last word, effectively putting an end to the conversation in favor of the 'right' conclusion."

Yes, I completely agree, and I'm glad we have you to keep us honest about this. I hope you will never stop. I just want to explore this a bit and see if we are really falling into orthodoxy. Ideally, we describe our direct experience as clearly as possible, avoid drawing conclusions, and create a pedagogy for helping others based on provisional assumptions and drawing from any and all teaching traditions. So we must make a clear distinction between descriptions of our experience and conclusions about our experience. We must also distinguish between experience and speculation based on hearsay. Here's an exploration:

(cont)

(cont)

Music student: You said that there are 13 notes in an octave, and I just found out that there are really only 8. I read about it in a book.

Music teacher: The 8 note scale is a subset of the 13 note scale. The 13 note scale is called a chromatic scale,and one kind of 8 note scale is a major scale. The major scale goes Do, Re, Mi, Fa, Sol, La, Ti, Do.

S: That's wrong. I read that the 8 note scale goes Do, Re, Me, Fa, Sol, Le, Te, Do.

T: That's a natural minor scale. These are different ways of dividing up the same territory. They have different flavors. Let's start at the beginning. Can you sing a major scale?

S: No.

T: OK, no problem. The first thing is to be able to match pitch. If I sing a note (sings a note) can you reproduce it?

S: (Makes a sound, but doesn't match pitch.) Is that it?

T: No. Let's begin here. We'll work together until you can reproduce a tone that you hear. That's called matching pitch. Then, we'll add notes until you can hear an 8 note major scale and sing it back. Then, we'll talk about the 13 note scale.

S: But I read that there are only eight notes...

---

There's very little progress to be made at the level of battling ideas. Religion is everywhere, and it does not respond to reason. It's just calcified ideas. This forum is not the place for religion. This is a hands-on forum, for people who want to do the experiment and find out for themselves.

To insist that there are 13 notes in an octave (counting the tonic twice, as is customary) in western music is not orthodoxy. It is observable reality. No one is served by pretending that speculation is as valid as observation.

Kenneth

""palabra"-- telecaster

[Didn't know you were accurate in two languages, Mike.] Indeed.

'The kids' are doing far better than 'all right.' It goes to show that there are many kinds of 'beginner's mind'-- including a drive to deep study of every sort, and not excluding a need to use one's own most expressive language to say 'what can't be said'.

It is amazing how quickly and surreptitiously a group-specific orthodoxy takes hold, and 'defining' something comes to mean having the last word, effectively putting an end to the conversation in favor of the 'right' conclusion."

one of the attornies i work for is puerto rican. when he writes 'palabra' in response to one of my emails it is a high compliment

...

"Palabra."

Hey guys, I think Kenneth will eventually put out an open call to anyone who speaks Spanish to help translate all the material on this site. My fiance and I are in the process of doing that but it's a slow process so if anyone wishes to please do!!!!!

Muchas gracias, amigos!!!!!

"to the big wave surfers:
do you think there is a relationship between krishnamurti's ideas about when "the observer becomes the observed" and 2nd or even 1st gear practice?
i always thought he was talking about becoming aware that the thing watching was also being watched which served to eliminate some inherent tension/dukha

also, i just sat. i think i noticed something new: that the feeling or awareness of me watching or feeling something is actually a lightning quick created image in my brain done out of years of habit to create a false sense of, maybe, continuity?"

Mike, I'm not a deep student of Krishnamurti, but I do deeply appreciate his particular expression of his own awakening. I don't think that Kenneth's map and that expression are a very good fit. No matter how you look at him, he's pretty 'sui generis' wrt the Brahmanic/Vedic roots of his Theosophical 'tradition' (into which he was more or less drafted).

What he had to say after the 'catastrophe' of his own process seems more like Dzogchen, 'sudden school' Zen, or Chan-- to me. That is, i don't get a sense of 'Witness practice' in the accounts I've read. But he may be one for the annals or 'irreproducible events,' having been hijacked onto a course determined by deeply confused Westerners convinced they were in possession of the keys to the 'mysteries of the East.' He may have been jarred into a sense of dislocation, of detached observation, by trauma, great or small. 'Witnessing' [aka out-of-body experience] is a common solution to unmanageable physical or psychic pain.

Having had the experience of noticing yourself authoring your 'self'-- I'd look up Shinzen Young on noting: image, talk, sensation... I'd get my foot in that door, real quick. And see what there is to see.

humble surf bunny

"(cont)

Kate, you wrote: "It is amazing how quickly and surreptitiously a group-specific orthodoxy takes hold, and 'defining' something comes to mean having the last word, effectively putting an end to the conversation in favor of the 'right' conclusion."

Yes, I completely agree, and I'm glad we have you to keep us honest about this. I hope you will never stop. I just want to explore this a bit and see if we are really falling into orthodoxy. Ideally, we describe our direct experience as clearly as possible, avoid drawing conclusions, and create a pedagogy for helping others based on provisional assumptions and drawing from any and all teaching traditions. So we must make a clear distinction between descriptions of our experience and conclusions about our experience. We must also distinguish between experience and speculation based on hearsay. Here's an exploration:

(cont)"

Gee, thanks for the compliment, Kenneth-- I'm afraid it emboldens me to speak my piece, though. It was after having sat for quite awhile with my own growing disappointment with trends I've thought I've seen here, that I wrote that post. And I'm never confident when I do these things that I'm not going to instigate some sort of outrage. I am not at all unfamiliar with being 'set straight' by officially authoritative people when I offer my view.

Perhaps that is why I'm so aware of that being done to others, and find it so difficult to watch and remain silent. I have also observed the small-group dynamic that creates insiders and outsiders-- but not the refuge of Sangha.

(cont.)

And, having raised children-- particularly the middle one 'blessed' with my own Irish fury to KNOW for herself, in her own way-- I may be more than half Taoist by now, following the watercourse way, where the instructed see Reality, not the teacher. Not the doctrine; not the vocabulary; not the authoritative sources IN THEMSELVES. But not excluding any of those things, either. The important thing is Recognition, the confidence that instills, which enables living an enlightened life. The specifics of what provides the basis for recognition-- 84,000 possibilities, from what I hear.

What I see with 'the kids' is an outpouring of passionate engagement with the questions being posed here-- and that they do it HERE is a great honor, I think.

Back to the boogie board in the back yard; I'm goin' weed-surfing.

"Perhaps that is why I'm so aware of that being done to others, and find it so difficult to watch and remain silent. I have also observed the small-group dynamic that creates insiders and outsiders-- but not the refuge of Sangha."

Yes, this needs to be explored. I can feel a bit of a schism developing. It gets expressed as a feeling that this is a vipassana board first, and everything else is second. That's been said a number of times in the past few weeks. There's also the related "insider/outsider" issue that Kate mentioned, and that needs to be addressed. Third, I think some other interpersonal issues are lurking (no surprise, we're all human beings), and those are, I suspect, sometimes being expressed as one of the other two things I just mentioned, but they're not really the same at all (JMHO). Fourth, there's the stuff we see here on this thread -- how to deal with issues pertaining to "authenticity," or maybe we should call them "issues of understanding" the core things we come here to talk about.

Having witnessed the problems that last item causes I'm glad that Kenneth is willing to address it as it arises because if left alone it festers and everyone eventually loses. I know I'm guilty of the third item myself. Not sure about the other two but I think that's maybe because they've not been adequately articulated - which I'm hoping they will be so we can address them. Maybe we need another thread for this.

Off to a very long drive to start a short vacation.

EDIT: spelling

"Answer: No, there's no conflict. From context, I gather that "naked awareness" refers to what I call the Witness, which is a state in which everything seems to be subject. All the objects of attention are see to be unimportant aspects of this big Self. This is what AugustLeo and I have referred to as Perspective of Consciousness (PoC) 5 on the Strawman Model of Awakening. Beyond this is PoC 6 which is the full integration of subject, object, and awareness, which can be distinguished, but never separated. "

No I do not refer to the witness, but rather the non-dual non-conceptual experience of all sensations, the whole experiential field itself, as being Awareness. Like you said, the container in which phenomena exist and are part of. This is not the witness but a non-dual insight into awareness not being limited to the subject/object dichotomy, that there is no object out there nor is there a subject in here, everything IS awareness, but this is still not Buddhist realization because a subtle reification remains of awareness as ultimate, awareness as self-existing, awareness as independent, though inseparable from phenomena. This unified field of experience is not what Rigpa is; it's only half, it's missing the non-inherency insight.

Hmm... interesting group dynamics here. Why such opposition to talking? and why do you assume I don't meditate? Anyway, the thread topic is 'your definition of enlightement' implying that opinions are to be expressed. I didn't realize I need to sit for 30 years and claim Arhatship to receive permission to post my views. lol.

I understand there's the issue of authenticity, and perhaps you guys just don't want to bother running ideas through your mind given by someone who looks 16 (i'm actually 24, i'll grow a beard someday). I think concepts are important, equal to experience, and that they are interdependent. If you disagree we can talk about that, but then that would be discussing ideas about ideas! Telling me to 'just sit' is a convenient way to avoid talking, me thinks.

Anyway I'll stop since i'm obviously in the wrong place for such pursuits. I respect that you guys value purely experiential experience over studying views and philosophically examining experiential insights; I just wanted to question your assumption that the best, and only, way to go about is pure experience and ignore view. This underlying assumption that views are meaningless is 'non-dogmatic', but begs the question.

"Hmm... interesting group dynamics here. Why such opposition to talking? and why do you assume I don't meditate? Anyway, the thread topic is 'your definition of enlightement' implying that opinions are to be expressed. I didn't realize I need to sit for 30 years and claim Arhatship to receive permission to post my views. lol.

I understand there's the issue of authenticity, and perhaps you guys just don't want to bother running ideas through your mind given by someone who looks 16 (i'm actually 24, i'll grow a beard someday). I think concepts are important, equal to experience, and that they are interdependent. If you disagree we can talk about that, but then that would be discussing ideas about ideas! Telling me to 'just sit' is a convenient way to avoid talking, me thinks.

Anyway I'll stop since i'm obviously in the wrong place for such pursuits. I respect that you guys value purely experiential experience over studying views and philosophically examining experiential insights; I just wanted to question your assumption that the best, and only, way to go about is pure experience and ignore view. This underlying assumption that views are meaningless is 'non-dogmatic', but begs the question. "

Dude, though I don't agree with some of what you said, agree with a lot of it, and don't really understand most of it, it has been fascinating and I'd prefer it if you kept talking.
THANKS