The Sankhara thread

Like kenneth said in his and nicks jhana videos. he never heard there were more than 8 jhanas even he experienced 2 more states. Later he heard/read there are actually 5 more jhanas! He neighter heard nor experienced the 3 more jhanas but they were and still are there!!! Now after additional practise he can confirm this because he experienced them as well! So maybe Who knows!? there were and are some people (ET's ) who match with that description of an sotapan....arahan! So why not let them use these terms and you just use another terms which fits fully with you! Why? For PEACE!! )) is this not why we are all here!

This would simplify the accessibility of these high value experiences of kenneth folk and every other practitioner here enormous!!! Such a pool of highly efficient and helpful experiences is hard to find! I love it so please show some understanding and give people who have faith in the buddhist scriptures/teachings also the possibility/chance to "come and see" and find relief!!

Please!! I promise it does not hurt!

Max, I wrote an essay in answer to your question about whether we on this forum are redefining the words "arahat," "sotapanna," etc:

kennethfolkdharma.wetpaint.com/page/Are+...+of+Enlightenment%3F

As you will read in the article, it is my opinion that these words do not belong to the scholars, wishful thinkers, and religious apologists who have consistently misinterpreted them. If words can be said to belong to anyone at all, they belong to the practitioners who "come and see" for themselves. The practitioners are the true heirs of the Buddha; let the scholars read their books and speculate, but do not let them discourage you from finding out for yourself what the Buddha taught. For now, I suggest that we let go of this circular discussion. If you apply yourself to the practice and yet still have these doubts one year from now, we can take up the topic again.

Hello kenneth!

Thats a fair deal! i agree and am willing to do that!


Thanks for your patience,
Max

Then you will go far Max, welcome to the dark side. muahaha...

" A 4th pather has the massive advantage of having no clinging there so negative habitual tendencies in particular can be let go of and over time PERHAPS disappear and/or change for positive ones. "

Hi Nick! Great thread you got going here. I'd like to add a few thoughts.

But first, for those of you who don't know me, my name's Alejandro, (you can call me Alex =) ). I live in Mexico City. I've been awake since 2008. I pretty sure I am in a very clear transition btwn 3rd and 4th path. My training comes mostly from the Vajrayana/Mahayana tradition and due to that I call myself a bodhisattva instead of an anagami or arahant. I see no difference though

Here's a thread of my practice: bit.ly/92FEPx

For those of you who don't know, the Bodhisattva goes through 10 grounds or "bhumis" (more info here: bit.ly/axmhM4 ). Its hard for me to pinpoint which bhumi I'm going through right now because my experience certainly doesn't follow clear phases. Right now 4th bhumi seems accurate.

Now, going back to what you said, you mention a disappearance of negative tendencies and an emergence of positive tendencies. This is exactly what happens (at least in my experience). When abiding in equanimity, any emergence of sankharas arise and cease, over and over, until the fade away completely. This has nothing to do with eliminating them. It has to do with impermanence of tendencies. Everything is impermanent, even tendencies.

Karma is inertia. So the tendencies and sankharas have inertia. If you don't "run with" sankharas or tendencies, inertia fades away. Then, as you and kenneth rightly point out, we develop wisdom memories. In the vajrayana we call that merit, though I like to call it positive inertia.

This positive inertia is what moves you through the bodhisattva bhumis.

Continued from above...

In the vajrayana tradition, it is said that Supreme Enlightenment occurs when negative inertia dissolves itself (becomes liberated in the space of primordial awareness). So I think this seems different to what enlightenment means in a theravada tradition (please correct me if I'm wrong).

I don't know any human being that has reached this type of enlightenment. I don't think you can fit in the definition of human being if the inertia of your sankharas an negative tendencies dissolves forever. However, if the maha/vajrayana is correct, that would be precisely the case.

I do know that my sankharas' inertia is fading. I do know that Third Gear is becoming permanent (in other words: permanent impermanence). So yes Nick, I can confirm what you're sensing.

Also,

I define sankhara as any phenomenon that is used to establish inherent existence.

In this sense, a sankhara can be:

- Anything that goes through the 12 nidanas.
- Anything that is born and dies
- Anything that arises and ceases
- Anything that assumes itself fragmented from the rest of the universe
- Etc.

If a Jhana assumes itself as existent, that would be a sankhara. If our mind conceptualizes Third Gear, that would be a sankhara. Anything can be used to assume inherent existence.

Tendencies do this. They assume themselves as existent. If one remains in equanimity, these cease.

Now, If we remain in Third Gear, Genuine unstained, unborn Third Gear, eventually the subtlest sankharas (physical or mental or repetitious) would fade.

Nick: the positive tendencies that emerge, according to the mahayana, are the 6 paramitas and the 4 immeasurables (brahmaviharas).

Paramitas:
- Generosity
- Ethic
- Patience
- Zeal
- Meditation
- Wisdom

Brhamaviharas:
- Loving Kidness (Metta)
- Compassion
- Sympathetic Joy
- Equanimity.

These are not, by no means, conceptual tenencies. Once again, these do arise if one remains in equanimity (or even better, in genuine Third Gear).

Interesting stuff Alex. Great to see you finally contributing to threads.
Very interesting indeed. i like it!

Nick

"
For those of you who don't know, the Bodhisattva goes through 10 grounds or "bhumis" (more info here: bit.ly/axmhM4 ). Its hard for me to pinpoint which bhumi I'm going through right now because my experience certainly doesn't follow clear phases. Right now 4th bhumi seems accurate. "

Hi Alex,

This stuff is fascinating. I just learned about the four path model about 6 months ago or so and was really captivated by it. This one is very interesting too. Let me ask a question about this though - do these two models map onto one another? If so, are there bhumis that fit certain paths or insight stages?

Just curious how it all works.

I'm sure they do. Although I haven't really made the comparison.

In the vajrayana, they have a 5 paths model:
- Path of preparation (one listens to teachings)
- Path of accumulation (one practices teachings)
- Path of seeing (deep insight occurs, so I assume this would correspond to stream entry).
- Path of meditation (jhanas/ñanas)
- Path of no more learning (4 path perhaps)

If you get to the path of seeing, at that moment you experience the 1st Bhumi/ground.

Look Chris and Nick, here is what I see as an 'outsider'. If your core practice is the 4 path model from the Burmese, then that stems from the Vissudimagga which is 1000 year old commentary from Buddhagosa on the Relay Chariot Sutra from the original canon which was one monks understanding of the path (btw Buddha never used this schematic, not that it matters). So its ironic that you want to divorce yourself from the ancient discourses but your very practice comes from scholar monks from Burma from the last century interpreting a 1000 year old scholarly commentary of the canon filtered thru the schematic of 1 sutra i.e. this is one of the most orthodox views of the path within Theravada Buddhism! You can change the names and ignore the origins but practice does not arise in a vacuum and is always culturally conditioned and interpreted via a perspective. So you can sit for 1000 years but you will never ever discern that culturally conditioned perspective from your zafu. So all I am saying is, if you are buying the Burmese understanding of a 1000 year old commentarial based explanation of what enlightenment is then maybe a broad direct from the sutra based explanation of what constitutes enlightenment may benefit as well. How can it hurt? It's my perspective, take it or leave it. I am not trying to cast doubt on anyone's practice or attainments. <continued>

There were different ways that enlightenment and the path were talked about by Buddha. It seems you are (knowingly or unknowingly) cherry picking one ignoring all others. If I were on the Buddhist path, I would investigate and contemplate all of them and not just one of them. Isn't practice supposed to open your mind and increase the ability to don more perspectives? Now it seems practice here is eclectic drawing from different practice modalities from different traditions as well, that's cool, I like that and have done that as well but I also like to draw on other sutras and traditions to augment my understanding of what constitutes Right View and/or Right Thought as well. But that's just me'¦whatever'¦

Eric, I want to investigate and experience things for myself, and that's what I've done. That's the only way to actually KNOW anything along this path. So yeah, I ignore a lot of scripture. I doesn't interest me given the contrast between what I can speak to from intimate personal experience and what someone else says, today, yesterday or tomorrow. I think you're clinging to what a lot of old, dead people said, and if you're worried about cultural influences and the filters they introduce then you've got that in spades.. Drop it. Fast! Go sit and find out for yourself. That alone will produce the only true understanding worth buying.

Peace, brother.

Hi Eric,

I was immersed in the Goenka tradition for a number of years. Never got too far. Never thought I could get very far. Probably lifetimes Goenka said. So I accepted that idea. Never put a lot of effort into it. Then I read Daniel Ingram's book, found the Dharma Overground where people were saying they'd done it. I got inspired and switched to noting Mahasi style. I went and sat a course within 2 years of this and during the 5th day of the course, something happened, a blip, a moment unremebered where all the senses shut down and cool bliss afterwards and easy access to 8 specific mental absorptions I had never had before. Then soon after this blip, more blips and then I found I could call them up by will of mind. The mind and perception changed. A lot of suffering dropped away. I then experienced another perception shift after another special blip. The mind opening up more and suffering that hounded me for so long was not arising. Over the months, lots of energetic movements in the body, pressures, bliss, etc then another blip. This time very "violent". it left the mind changed once again. A massive drop in suffering. The mind felt aloof to all the mentla and physical processes going on. Clinging to phenomena was radically changed. THen another perception shift. This time without consciousness shutting down with one of those blips. It felt like a synching up of the mind and the body. All phenomena was being seen as equal. The illusory self was seen as just sensations, images, thoughts etc being read as a separate entity. Now it had lost its illusory status and perception of it shifted permanently.

Nick, I really have trouble envisioning you as a miserable bastard at any time on your life

Continued from above...

Now there is absolutely no clinging to phenomena which still arise. There were 4 significant shifts in perception and level of suffering. I could care less what one wants to call them. I am not familiar with the suttas. I was never really interested.
I noted my experience continuously, gained a good momentum with this practice and all of these things mentioned above occurred. From a miserable bastard to the happiest and most content I have ever been. Call it what you want. If you do the same you can also experience it. Screw all the names! They really mean sqwat!

I usually keep fairly mum on the threads that go deep into the Pali conceptual stuff, because I know almost nothing about it, and made no reference to it in the stages when noteworthy changes were taking place for me.

But, as a fellow 'outsider'-- albeit on a different 'side' perhaps-- I want to say 'thanks' to Eric for a respectful differing take, and for offering an overview of the Theravadan approach from an outside POV. Any help I get in contextualizing things is most welcome.

My current working hypothesis is that the Vajrayana encompasses a wider range of practice and experience-- so that while the 4 paths fit onto the beginning of Vajrayana, the whole of the Vajrayana can't be squished into the 4 paths. [disclaimer-- I am not a scholar or any sort of expert; I'm just an old lady with a lively curiosity and a certain facility for noticing things. And a computer.]

"I usually keep fairly mum on the threads that go deep into the Pali conceptual stuff, because I know almost nothing about it, and made no reference to it in the stages when noteworthy changes were taking place for me.

But, as a fellow 'outsider'-- albeit on a different 'side' perhaps-- I want to say 'thanks' to Eric for a respectful differing take, and for offering an overview of the Theravadan approach from an outside POV. Any help I get in contextualizing things is most welcome.

My current working hypothesis is that the Vajrayana encompasses a wider range of practice and experience-- so that while the 4 paths fit onto the beginning of Vajrayana, the whole of the Vajrayana can't be squished into the 4 paths. [disclaimer-- I am not a scholar or any sort of expert; I'm just an old lady with a lively curiosity and a certain facility for noticing things. And a computer.]"

The descriptions of "fourth path" which I read hear sound identical to descriptions of "liberation" as I've heard different Vajrayana teachers describe it. Though the Four-path model isn't used in Vajrayana, the concept of Arhat as individual liberation as Nick describes for example is. It seems to be arrived at via different method and experience, and is interpreted in a different context, valued differently, and definitely seen as the beginning of a process of radical transformation which involve other practices and other realizations that are said to go beyond "individual liberation", what is here called Fourth Path or Arhatship.
So you're *all* right! And of course Kenneth teaches other forms of realization beyond Fourth Path too-- Self-Realization and Enlightenment, as they are called here lately.

Chris I think you are not quite understanding what I am saying. Whatever you find silently and introspectively, non-conceptually looking at your subjective experience, when you bring forth that understanding or insight into words (heck even into thought within your own mind), you will think and speak within a culturally conditioned narrative. What I find interesting about the old sutras is how Buddha did that within the culture that he lived. Below is something Joseph Campbell wrote about mythology. BTW he also felt that modern man had lost the ability to think symbolically or mythologically and had thrown the baby out with the bathwater. I would say that they really have not, they are only under the spell of the modern scientific materialism myth and merely don't know it.

Nick I am glad you feel better. Enjoy it while it lasts.

Roomy, thank you, yes a bit of context is all I have been adding to the mix.

Be well friends'¦love

eric

Mythology has been interpreted by the modern intellect as a primitive, fumbling effort to explain the world of nature (Frazer); as a production of poetical fantasy from prehistoric times, misunderstood by succeeding ages (Muller); as a repository of allegorical instruction, to shape the individual to his group (Durkheim); as a group dream, symptomatic of archetypal urges within the depths of the human psyche (Jung); as the traditional vehicle of man's profoundest metaphysical insights (Coomaraswamy); and as God's Revelation to His children (the Church). Mythology is all of these. The various judgments are determined by the viewpoints of the judges. For when scrutinized in terms not of what it is but of how it functions, of how it has served mankind in the past, of how it may serve today, mythology shows itself to be as amenable to the obsessions and requirements of the individual, the race, the age (Campbell, 1968, p. 382).
Myths have four functions (Campbell, 1988, p. 31):
1. Mystical. Realizing what a wonder the universe is and what a wonder you are, and experiencing awe before the mystery. Myth opens the world to the dimension of mystery, to the realization of the mystery that underlies all forms.
2. Cosmological dimensions. This is the dimension with which science is concerned-showing you what the shape of the universe is, but showing it in such a way that the mystery comes through.
3. Sociological. This supports and validates a certain social order. These myths vary from place to place.
4. Pedagogical. How to live a human life under any circumstances.

"I think you are not quite understanding what I am saying."-ericlonline

No, Eric, I think it is you who are not understanding that this forum is dedicated to direct experience. This is not a forum for scholarly debate. If I were moderating a forum for scholarly debate, I would welcome your well-researched and well-articulated points of view. I moderate no such forum.

Like everyone else, you are welcome to post here only if you will do so within the hands-on, practice-oriented culture we have worked so hard to cultivate. I would love to hear about your own personal experience of contemplative practice in whatever traditional or non-traditional style you prefer. That is what we do here, as described on the Concept and Mission Statement page:

kennethfolkdharma.wetpaint.com/page/Conc...nd+Mission+Statement

Thank you for understanding,

Kenneth

"Chris I think you are not quite understanding what I am saying."

Guilty as charged! I admit to not paying much attention to the ancient sutras. I used to read the discourses. I used to read a lot of dharma oriented material; magazines, books, articles, blogs. I stopped reading so much because my practice became much more engaging. It was real in a way that the words and concepts could never be.