Not a Stage

There are no doctrines in Dharma only methods.
Form is no other than emptiness, empiness only form is, despite its metaphysical appearance, actually method.
It is like saying this exists because it does not exist, or I am Richard because I am not Richard or any other contradictory statement .
When held in the mind and deeply thought about It bamboozles the mind into not knowing.
It is deliberately very beautiful, very frustrating, and it works if you use it directly.

"My wisdom answer is this website, Mark. I tell everything I know, all the time, to whoever will listen. For those advanced enough to hear it, here is my instruction: give over what you think you know in return for freedom from suffering in this moment. For those not ready to hear this, I joyfully offer comprehensive training in developmental meditation. This is the three speed transmission."

That's why you are my hero!
I wonder if you realize how my suffering has been reduced in my life because you decided to do your website...

"Following this, I think the "wisdom answer" (usually, though not always) among already-arrived spiritual types is that it is much better not to know. Internal silence is best. But the answer to the question (usually, though not always) where most average people are concerned it is much better to say one knows, as that pulls ordinary people along and up the ladder."

Mark, this is wonderfully expressed. It's a conundrum we all face. I have a family. I have a family that, like most families, has issues, has problems, needs emotional, financial, spiritual, and all kinds of answers every day. Every day, sometimes minute by minute, I am presented with one wisdom question after another. And if that's not happening at home it's happening at the office. The relief my practice brings to this equation is that "I" can get out of the way and see clearly the needs, the wants, the must haves, the nice to haves, the pain, the joy.

Emptiness is the conscious apprehension of the unknown.

There is nothing known.

(Perception doesn't know the difference between the unknown and 'nothingness', or emptiness.)

Possibly.

Something seems to happen post 4th path. It leads to a kind of... search or journey. A sort of restlessness but not boredom. It's manifesting right now as a desire to explore, to expand, to traverse something. Maybe this isn't a practice related thing at all. I often think we interpret everything as caused by or related to our practice when the "cause" of everything is so clearly uncertain how could we possibly know that? On a certain level there is no cause, anyway. There is flow but it's not even based on the illusion of time as much as it is on the contrast between this and that. This may seem like an evolution of that but it actually arises as this and then that arises.

Anyway, new and fresh seems valuable and desirable today

Kenneth--

Here are the issues that pop up for me: The idea of a developmental process where one ends up awake but still quite human, fallible--what seemed to be the standard before--*feels* pretty open door. But descriptions of the consistent, unwavering immersion in direct path (no views, no suffering, no questions, no ambition, no anxiety, no anger, no interests, etc.) places the goal posts in the almost "not human" range. Even where I am it seems strange, actually sounds fishy. I'm not saying I'm right (at all), I'm just saying what the view looks like from this side of the fence.

So I think I find myself resonating with Chris, feeling like his (and Roomy's?) vision of 4th path and beyond feels desirable and that I could live that way, interacting as I have to with regular people and clients and students and family. Maybe that is just a function of developmental distance, that I'm closer vertically and biologically to him than to you. Maybe I'm just slow. Maybe it's a life situation thing. Or all three. But I think there is this thing about what can be communicated and how to do that that I still am attached to.

PS I've had similar feelings about Eckhart and Adya, so this is a pattern for me that I admit to. I don't see this in you, but I know from people close to Adya that he just doesn't relate easily in a social way. That might have been a pre-existing problem for him, but the direct path stuff just sounds so way out that it worries me.

I just had a little run-in with my daughter. She's taking, has been taking for months, an online course that she needs to finish soon. This has dragged on for a long time and I see no evidence of it being close to completion. She was supposed to stay home this afternoon to finish, once and for all. Didn't happen. Found her Facebook postings online from mid-afternoon so apparently Facebook was happening instead. So, I went up to her room to ask about this. "Will you be able to finish today?" That question was greeted by a sigh, rolled eyes and a comment that I "bug her too much" about the class.

So, I'm a father. Her father. It's a responsibility I have to make sure she matures, realizing that there's freedom, and there's responsibility, and they come as a pair. I can be patient and let things roll to a certain extent, but at some point I have to step in and provide counsel, some parental form of a what passes for wisdom, or even discipline. I have to plant a flag, in other words.

I'm not sure how this fits into what Kenneth is experimenting with. Maybe it doesn't, or maybe I'd just be a much better parent of I were in direct perception mode all the time. I can do that when I can, but life stuff seems to interrupt it and I'm just not sure that's a bad thing.

When an entity (you and me) sees that it is empty of a solid self, that things change constantly and that there is no satisfaction to be had from objects of experience they begin to awaken to the truth of their true nature.

What happens next varies.

"
I just had a little run-in with my daughter. She's taking, has been taking for months, an online course that she needs to finish soon. This has dragged on for a long time and I see no evidence of it being close to completion. She was supposed to stay home this afternoon to finish, once and for all. Didn't happen. Found her Facebook postings online from mid-afternoon so apparently Facebook was happening instead. So, I went up to her room to ask about this. "Will you be able to finish today?" That question was greeted by a sigh, rolled eyes and a comment that I "bug her too much" about the class.

So, I'm a father. Her father. It's a responsibility I have to make sure she matures, realizing that there's freedom, and there's responsibility, and they come as a pair. I can be patient and let things roll to a certain extent, but at some point I have to step in and provide counsel, some parental form of a what passes for wisdom, or even discipline. I have to plant a flag, in other words.

I'm not sure how this fits into what Kenneth is experimenting with. Maybe it doesn't, or maybe I'd just be a much better parent of I were in direct perception mode all the time. I can do that when I can, but life stuff seems to interrupt it and I'm just not sure that's a bad thing.

"

Chris, would you agree with me that practice makes parenting better?
- you can be actually present for your kids
- you can be actually present for yourself while parenting
- you have potential access to some good advice for your kids
- you are more able to lighten up and get out of your own way and thus make less mistakes as a parent
- you have a better sense of what your actual responsibility is for their maturing and what is theirs, so you can avoid wasted energy on useless struggles
- it can be easier to tune into and appreciate the abject joy of loving something so much
-- etc.,

Yes, Mike, I even said that in an earlier post today, but not in the detail you just did. It's "up there" somewhere, number 52.

"
Yes, Mike, I even said that in an earlier post today, but not in the detail you just did. It's "up there" somewhere, number 52.

"

I have no doubt that it is the love for my kids that has made me practice as hard as I have the last two years.

That certainly shines through in your comments here, Mike.

"
That certainly shines through in your comments here, Mike.

"

I think kids need a parent who is willing to be intimate.
With them and with him/herself.

Right on guys; I definitely feel you on this. I also have to add that parenting has itself been an amazing practice, and not in some wishy washy pop buddhism way. The first eight months turned me completely inside out, in the best possible way; no time to sit, but the most insight into emptiness/compassion as an inseparable pair, as the same damn thing really. The less "me", the less resistance; and so the easiest time being of benefit. Practice and life is such a circle, when you can open to ordinary life situations as a sincere practice that's where the real juice is, for me. Sitting can really facilitate that-- but for some people practice seems to get in the way of their life, at least at certain points! Certainly did for me at one time, anyway. Now sitting is just another "ordinary life situation", and it seems both a lot less "spiritual" and a lot more profound.

"My mother died of a massive stroke/heart attack in a hosptial way far away in Monroe, Louisiana. My father and sister and niece were in the hosptial room when she died. My dad called and told me she was "gone." A minute later my niece (who was very very close to my mother) called me back to assure me that my mother hadn't died and that my father was mistaken. I knew she was wrong and in massive denial but I don't remember what I said to her.
For a long time I kept a message that my mother had left on my cell phone on the morning of the day she died. She was completely lucid, and told me it was okay to leave my marriage if that was what I needed to do (I hadn't told her that I was even considering such a thing).
Just thought I'd share ......"

Hi Mike,
Thanks so much for sharing this. I'm in the midst of reading the latest book by Raymond Moody "Glimpses of Eternity" (he wrote the pioneering work "Life After Life" 40 years ago). Many people with a terminal illness, in the hours immediately before dying, become more lucid and communicative. Quite a few talk to invisible people. Most fascinating of all is that sometimes, relatives in the room ALSO see and hear those people, and even experience the "light at the end of the tunnel" along with their loved ones after that person finally drops the body in death. This "shared near-death" experience was news to me.

I really like where this discussion is going and I feel it's a discussion I need to have. I mean personally; it's what I need to talk about. As far as my own practice goes, I don't know where all this leads and I didn't choose it except for a general, life-long commitment to "get enlightened" in a healthy, organic way. So I'm just taking it as it comes. I've been through some big changes lately and this affects the way I live moment to moment and also the way I interact on this forum, but I don't think the people I see socially can tell any difference in me except possibly that I'm not as reactive lately.

Mark wrote: "I know from people close to Adya that he just doesn't relate easily in a social way. That might have been a pre-existing problem for him, but the direct path stuff just sounds so way out that it worries me."

I'm concerned about this too and if I get to choose I do not want to become socially awkward or distant. So far, that isn't happening; I just had my French lesson and my teacher and I laughed and had fun like we normally do. We always videotape the French lessons and I can look at them and see that I appear just the same as always. The changes I notice are more inward than outward; I've been happier since beginning the "experiment" a few weeks ago. I don't seem to torture myself and when habitual thoughts come up of decades-old imagined slights, I notice them and let them go quickly because it hurts too much to hold them.

(cont'd)

This latest development feels organic but not linear. In other words, from my present perch I can see how everything has led to this point, but I could not have predicted it from the previous phase. A linear extrapolation from where I was a month ago would suggest that the insight cycles continue, the clear light of awareness gets ever more accessible, and it is ever more possible to see that although there is suffering in this personality called Kenneth, it isn't happening to anyone. The new perspective is different: suffering is a function of viewing the world through a particular lens and I am no longer limited to that lens. Suffering is a place I can choose to visit in order to model vipassana for a student, for example. But it does not feel like home anymore. I have no way of knowing if this is a permanent shift, a lucky "moment" in time, or a function of my current low-stress situation. But I can say that it seems infinitely preferable to the old way and if it does go away I will work hard to rediscover this perspective.

This ramble has been inspired by concerns expressed by both Chris and Mark among others. In this ongoing experiment, each of us will reach his or her own conclusions and it isn't for me to say whether other people now find me odd. But since I have regular conversations with so many of you, the pattern is likely to emerge sooner rather than later. I look forward to hearing more feedback. If, as I suspect, there is no particular downside to leaving behind anger and anxiety, I hope you will all join me as soon as possible in the experiment.

I still haven't been angry since the first day of the experiment. I don't even know what to say about that; it is completely unprecedented in my experience. I believe I see the 2nd Noble Truth up close and personal for the first time. "Tanha" is a hot coal and I drop it right away. It is obvious in an indescribable way that I can cherish my opinions/preferences or be free from suffering in any moment... but not both. This is why I keep harping on it; being free from suffering is wonderful and I want everyone to experience it, however unrealistic that dream may be.

(cont'd)

"
Something seems to happen post 4th path. It leads to a kind of... search or journey. A sort of restlessness but not boredom. It's manifesting right now as a desire to explore, to expand, to traverse something. Maybe this isn't a practice related thing at all. I often think we interpret everything as caused by or related to our practice when the "cause" of everything is so clearly uncertain how could we possibly know that? On a certain level there is no cause, anyway. There is flow but it's not even based on the illusion of time as much as it is on the contrast between this and that. This may seem like an evolution of that but it actually arises as this and then that arises.

Anyway, new and fresh seems valuable and desirable today

"

Thanks for saying this, Chris. Post 4th path, although something has been accomplished, the journey doesn't end, not so long as we live and breathe.

I like seeing comments that have "Gozen" in the left hand frame. I also like seeing comments that start with "Thanks for saying this, Chris..." The former is pure joy, the latter is pure vanity

Kenneth, thanks for your comments. I have been concerned that you have at times recently seemed almost evangelical in your enthusiasm for this new practice. That was very different than my reading of your typical persona here. I'm glad to see that you consider this an experiment, still, and that you don't have any desire to become awkward or have flattened interactions in social settings.

Edit: I also have concerns about the trade off between my current experience of life and what it seems to take to have all that inner peace. I'm not convinced that's such a great deal. Hell, I'm not sure I could ever do it given my lifestyle - family, career, and such, as I said earlier today. I have to plant flags a lot of the time. I'm not sure I could function without doing that - or do I misunderstand what you mean by "planting flags?"

"Hi Mike,
Thanks so much for sharing this. I'm in the midst of reading the latest book by Raymond Moody "Glimpses of Eternity" (he wrote the pioneering work "Life After Life" 40 years ago). Many people with a terminal illness, in the hours immediately before dying, become more lucid and communicative. Quite a few talk to invisible people. Most fascinating of all is that sometimes, relatives in the room ALSO see and hear those people, and even experience the "light at the end of the tunnel" along with their loved ones after that person finally drops the body in death. This "shared near-death" experience was news to me.

"

My second wife's father died of lung cancer. Just after the moment he died, the man's third wife's grown son (so my x-wife's step brother but no relation to me) who I'd never met or talked to before called for my x-wife. She wasn't home, so he told me what happened. He said it was "awful" and "amazing." The poor guy had been suffering for days and struggling for breath at home (there was some problem between his wife and the hospice workers who were supposed to administer pallitive care) when he started to repeat "make it stop," "make it stop," "make it stop" then there was the death rattle and it was over. And he made the call to our house.
And, of course, I had to tell my wife the news.

Kenneth, it would also be a big help if you could address how you see this new practice of yours relating to awakening. It seems to me it's not a practice that will get one there. It appears to be a mode or a way to experience existence with less emotional amplitude (more peace?) and that somehow interrupts the chain of dependent origination. But, it cannot be a way to awaken as it doesn't reveal the nature of things. It is not an investigation, not about insight, not about opening to one's true nature or the clear light. As I told you on the phone, the two practices appear to me to be completely incompatible as I experience them.

If you've addressed these issues elsewhere I apologize. But now that we got started....

There are two things that are related but still separate:
1. Awakening to one's true nature.
2. Learning how to live at peace and joy in this life.

One CAN inform the other.
Or not.

"I still haven't been angry since the first day of the experiment. I don't even know what to say about that; it is completely unprecedented in my experience. I believe I see the 2nd Noble Truth up close and personal for the first time. "Tanha" is a hot coal and I drop it right away. It is obvious in an indescribable way that I can cherish my opinions/preferences or be free from suffering in any moment... but not both. This is why I keep harping on it; being free from suffering is wonderful and I want everyone to experience it, however unrealistic that dream may be.

(cont'd)"

Hi Kenneth

You have said an experience is just an experience and to let them go. The report here seems a contradiction of this, so you might like to expand further. From your previous writing I am getting it that this is post 4th path practice. Therefore I am currently extrapolating that the abiguities are best left unresolved and the whole subject best left alone or ignored by those pre 4th path. It would be good to have a clarification on your intended audience for these practice instructions.