Bentinho Massaro on beyond non-duality

From his Facebook page at:

www.facebook.com/bentinhomassaro

"Pure experiencing/Awareness gets tired of assuming the thought that says it is a separate experiencer of separate experiences and so it drops these thoughts and achieves enlightened awareness, or its natural state of pure experiencing.

Then absolute freedom gets tired of even paying attention to, and associating itself, with pure nondual experiencing (which is still false identity) and stays only as its own, unsurpassable beyondness. Not this, not that, nor the seeing of this or that.

Only then, when your entire being is tired of experiencing, when all your fuel and interest in existing and existence is exhausted, will you naturally take the plunge and understand beyondness from beyondness. Then, no longer the question arises of the middle way, or balancing out absolute versus relative. All problem solving disappears completely, because the seer of them disappears as appearing 'real'.

You have tasted the beyond altogether and will more and more be devoid of assuming even creation's natural state of experiencing as your own. You will grow tired of holding on to experiencing, or awareness, moreso once you start tasting truly timeless beyondness.

Awareness, that which experiences all and everything, is itself an appearance."

I am skeptical and think his View of his experience may have become trapped in an unproductive cul de sac.

I'm guessing he was finding some unsatisfactoriness in his interpretation of "natural state of pure experiencing" and after letting go of a bit more suffering he is now trying to rationalize the cognitive dissonance.

I would like this to be more of a critique of teaching style rather than the character of the individual.

If he is speaking from a spontaneous place I would expect all sorts of oddities in conceptualization and communication style.

""You have tasted the beyond altogether and will more and more be devoid of assuming even creation's natural state of experiencing as your own. You will grow tired of holding on to experiencing, or awareness, moreso once you start tasting truly timeless beyondness.

Awareness, that which experiences all and everything, is itself an appearance."

I am skeptical and think his View of his experience may have become trapped in an unproductive cul de sac.

I'm guessing he was finding some unsatisfactoriness in his interpretation of "natural state of pure experiencing" and after letting go of a bit more suffering he is now trying to rationalize the cognitive dissonance."

I dunno. I don't know anything about Bentinho besides what you quoted. But, it does sound a bit like Pali Buddhism. Nibbana being the non-experience distinguished from all phenomena, appearance, experience, etc.

As for whether it's any good in terms of teaching style, I'd say it depends on the person.

"Only then, when your entire being is tired of experiencing, when all your fuel and interest in existing and existence is exhausted, will you naturally take the plunge and understand beyondness from beyondness. Then, no longer the question arises of the middle way, or balancing out absolute versus relative. All problem solving disappears completely, because the seer of them disappears as appearing 'real'."

"You have tasted the beyond altogether and will more and more be devoid of assuming even creation's natural state of experiencing as your own. You will grow tired of holding on to experiencing, or awareness, moreso once you start tasting truly timeless beyondness." -Bentinho Massaro

And then... the double beyondo is multiplied by the triple beyondo squared plus orders of magnitude of more beyondness until the entire structure of mind and universe implodes into a singularity of quintessential beyondness.

(Or something like that.)

The trouble with being so darned enlightened is that you run out of room to describe your next enlightenment, should you be so fortunate to continue to grow and learn. OK, I admit it... I've been there.

I'm just wondering if any of this non-dual style conceptualizing is actually useful? It seems like there are a lot of people out there continuously producing more and more layers of concepts for people to waste their time trying to "get".

Is this stuff helping people wake up or not?

I just read that Facebook page and it seems wordy and not really good at pointing, which is what I think "good" non-dual writing does. Point to something.

In his videos, Bentinho Massaro seems to be practicing what he is preaching, which is a good sign. In other words, he looks like he is tuning in, moment by moment, to something in his experience, presumably whatever it is he means by "awareness." On the downside, his pointing, as Chris points out above, is not particularly compelling. Some folks, e.g., Adhashanti in his prime or Eckhart Tolle in his prime, have really had a knack for pointing; they could create a mood and seemed to be able to effortlessly draw their audience into an altered state. This is the only way nondual pointing can really work, of course, since all nondual teachers including Bentinho Massaro insist that their teaching is not about concepts. For better or worse, however, Bentinho doesn't yet seem to have the vibe of a really good nondual teacher. So we're left with a lot of words and a pretty smile.

My guess is that he will grow into the job and in about 20 years we might really have something. Meanwhile, I hope for his sake and his students' that he can avoid some of the pitfalls that await a young guru with more than a passing resemblance to Leonardo DiCaprio.

""The trouble with being so darned enlightened is that you run out of room to describe your next enlightenment, should you be so fortunate to continue to grow and learn. OK, I admit it... I've been there. "

Kenneth, how would you say that this has affected the way you model progressive development (if it has)?

Bentinho just got to Thusness Stage 3: awakeningtoreality.blogspot.com/2007/03/...s-of-experience.html

Thusness (2008): " Associating 'death of I' with vivid luminosity of your experience is far too early. This will lead you into erroneous views because there is also the experience of practitioners by way of complete surrendering or elimination (dropping) like Taoist practitioners. An experience of deep bliss that is beyond that of what you experienced can occur. But the focus is not on luminosity but effortlessness, naturalness and spontaneity. In complete giving up, there is no 'I' ; it is also needless to know anything; in fact 'knowledge' is considered a stumbling block. The practitioner drops away mind, body, knowledge...everything. There is no insight, there is no luminosity there is only total allowing of whatever that happens, happen in its own accord. All senses including consciousness are shut and fully absorbed. Awareness of 'anything' is only after emerging from that state.

One is the experience of vivid luminosity while the other is a state of oblivious. It is therefore not appropriate to relate the complete dissolving of 'I' with what u experienced alone."


Earlier this year I wrote elsewhere about the particular emphases of Nisargadatta:

For example he said,

"In this spiritual hierarchy, from the grossest to the subtlest, you are the subtlest. How can this be realized? The very base is that you don't know you are, and suddenly the feeling of '˜I amness' appears. The moment it appears you see space, mental space; that subtle sky-like space, stabilize there. You are that. When you are able to stabilize in that space, you are space only. When this space-like identity '˜I am' disappears, the space will also disappear, there is no space. When that space-like '˜I am' goes into oblivion, that is the eternal state, '˜nirguna', no form, no beingness. Actually, what did happen there? This message '˜I am' was no message. Dealing with this aspect, I cannot talk much because there is no scope to put it in words."

Also he said,

"The '˜I am' is absent only in the state of '˜samadhi', when the self merges in the Self. Otherwise it will be there. In the state of a realized person the '˜I am' is there, he just doesn't give much importance to it. A '˜jnani' is not guided by a concept."

This is the description of Stage 3, which as Thusness have said is the state where even beingness or consciousness enters oblivion.

When you realize Stage 5, I.e. anatta, then there is no more hierarchy, no more making nothingness-prior-to-i-am as the purest state.

Whether I AM, nothingness, or sensate manifestation, all are equally pure. There is no purest absolute state. This is realized only when you see that always already, in seeing just the seen, no seer. Always already, there is no I, so there is no entry and exit, 'I am' identity is not only absent in samadhi state or a purest Absolute, but is already so in all manifestations.

And yes, Thusness too have said before that Nisargadatta is describing stage 3, and leads students to I AM first then to the nothingness.

Related: www.prahlad.org/disciples/premananda/ess...0AND%20AWARENESS.htm

"Kenneth, how would you say that this has affected the way you model progressive development (if it has)?" -- EndInSight

I'm obviously not Kenneth but the smartass in me feels the need to respond in this way --- To the extent that one must make models of awakening one must be prepared to have their models destroyed by their own experience.



Sorry, Kenneth, but,... yeah.

"
"Kenneth, how would you say that this has affected the way you model progressive development (if it has)?" -- EndInSight

I'm obviously not Kenneth but the smartass in me feels the need to respond in this way --- To the extent that one must make models of awakening one must be prepared to have their models destroyed by their own experience.



Sorry, Kenneth, but,... yeah.

"

The smart arse in me says the best model is 'you get what you devote to/optimize for'............but yeh, and maybe then some stuff you didn't expect and maybe some more stuff as well, then what you wish to optimize for may change. But hey, whatever you optimized for initially occured. And that is what matters, ladies and gentlemen, that is what matters. Whatever one optimizes for may change but you get what you optimize for....and then some........... ...ahem.......*cough*.........and so on.



P.S. Thusness should write a book so you could then just quote the page number, xsurf

"P.S. Thusness should write a book so you could then just quote the page number, xsurf "

I am a Thusness fanboy so I compiled all the conversations, quotes, texts etc.... until 2007, then I gave up. It is over 2000 pages... my friend call it the Thusness wiki, lol

AEN, you often have very precise opinions concerning where practitioners are with respect to Thusness' model (you suggest a more precise analysis than I could imagine offering on the basis of information that often seems quite limited to me)...out of curiosity, how often do you find that this modelling / analysis benefits practitioners? (For example, you could email Bentinho and, as a start, see whether he agrees or disagrees with you, and see whether he indicates that he could benefit from the conclusions you've drawn.)

"AEN, you often have very precise opinions concerning where practitioners are with respect to Thusness' model (you suggest a more precise analysis than I could imagine offering on the basis of information that often seems quite limited to me)...out of curiosity, how often do you find that this modelling / analysis benefits practitioners? (For example, you could email Bentinho and, as a start, see whether he agrees or disagrees with you, and see whether he indicates that he could benefit from the conclusions you've drawn.)"

It may or may not benefit practitioners. For example, for myself, knowing this is not of much practical benefit because I myself did not experience "Thusness Stage 3", so for such people it is just "fyi" or just for reference in case maybe you stumble it in future or something. For some others who experienced it, they may find it of benefit.

There are countless teachers out there... I have found it not very beneficial to e-mail them stuff like this, (they usually either don't reply much or simply acknowledge and move on). I have mailed (like in 2006) some of Thusness things even to people like Eckhart Tolle... as I imagined some of those things Thusness told me are even more helpful for them than myself at that time, hah

Thusness on Stage 3: www.box.com/s/f86a921dfa62ccd0ca7b

"The smart arse in me says the best model is 'you get what you devote to/optimize for'............"

Bernadette Roberts seems to have been a notable exception to that (by her own reckoning)...

On the Thusness map, I see no reason why Stage 5 and 3 couldn't happen in the reverse order.

I say this because it may be inaccurate to imply that Mr. Massaro is "only" at Stage 3.

My experience first confirmed that there is just experience and no observer of experience "In the seeing, just the seen". From this, my mind assumed experience. It is only recently that my mind feels like it has confirmed(?) non-experience.

"Bernadette Roberts seems to have been a notable exception to that (by her own reckoning)..."

She devoted to something Christian didn't she? Some sort of 'surrendering'? 'Surrendering' much of herself (if not all of it) to the will of God? Such 'surrender' is certainly an optimization of something bringing results. I don't think someone need know what the results of their optimization might be. But they still get what they are optimizing for.

She surrendered to a personal God and found the end of the concept of personhood (with respect to God and with respect to herself). If the results of "optimizing" can be so different from the expectation (assuming her case doesn't illustrate something too rare), I question how useful the idea is in the context of trying to understand how practice relates to results. Wouldn't the "you get what you optimize for" theory predict that a person optimizing for something involving the experience of a personal God would get something involving the experience of a personal God out of the process?

@ EndInSight #21

It's a good point, EIS. I would say that you get what you train for if you know what you are doing. If you are just casting about in the dark, who knows where you might end up? It's very much like physical fitness; you can train to be a ballet dancer or a power lifter, but it helps a lot to know which exercises lead to which goal. By now, training methods in physical fitness are well understood. We are in a much earlier stage of development with regard to contemplative practice, but we are starting to get the idea. We, in this community, are on the cutting edge of this effort, and I would add that this is one of the real benefits of maps, standards, and metrics; we are paving the way for a time when you can choose your outcome and confidently train toward that end in the same way that you can choose a physical fitness regimen today and sleep well at night knowing that you will not end up with a power lifter's body if you are hoping to be a ballerina.

"On the Thusness map, I see no reason why Stage 5 and 3 couldn't happen in the reverse order.

I say this because it may be inaccurate to imply that Mr. Massaro is "only" at Stage 3.

My experience first confirmed that there is just experience and no observer of experience "In the seeing, just the seen". From this, my mind assumed experience. It is only recently that my mind feels like it has confirmed(?) non-experience."

Yes, there is no fixed linear way it is experienced. In Bentinho Massaro's case, his progress is from Stage 1 and 2 to 4 (One Mind) then into 3. The problem is when there is Absolutization of something as the true subject which as Thusness rightly said is due to the immaturity of insight (into anatta, into the three dharma seals, into emptiness and d.o.).

Whether it is the I AM taken as true subject, or non-dual awareness taken as true subject, or nothingness taken as true subject. (True subject as 'what I truly am', unchanging, absolute, independent)

All these means one has not arisen insight into Anatta (Stage 5). When you realize Stage 5, everything becomes flat and Nothingness is no more purer or absolute than I AM or a sight. There is no 'I' being imputed on sense perception nor on nothingness. Nothing is I, me, mine, everything is impermanent, arising and ceasing, and dependently originated. At this point, there is no more seeking after a pure subject, and the 'dispassion for consciousness' (his tiredness of experiencing) equally applies for 'dispassion for nothingness'. There is no longer *anything* (including nothing) to abide in - whether beingness, non-dual consciousness, or nothingness, everything is being self-released (not by dissociation which is dualistic) and YET everything is vividly present. As Thusness said - the one taste of oblivion and presence, vividly present and gone thoroughly.

So someone at Stage 5 may have knowledge of I AM, of non-dual consciousness, of nothingness, yet there is no hierarchy - nothing is purer than another, nothing is more 'self-less' than other as everything is empty of self, empty of I, me, mine. There is absolutely no absolute

Someone realizing I AM may think - only the I AM/Eternal Witness is real and is the real self. Someone at non-dual may think, oh that was a wrong identification - consciousness has never been divided and there is no 'witness' behind experience, the one consciousness is both source and substance of all appearances. Someone experiencing nothingness may think - oh all consciousness are all mere experiences and appearances, they are not who I am, only the nothingness is Absolute and what I truly am. Now I am tired of all experiences.

Then one realizes the *empty nature*, and says oh! All along there never was an I, all states are equally *empty* of a self... at this point, there is no more seeking after experiences (previously identified as I), nor seeking after nothingness (previously identified as I) which is now recognized as still another transient state - this is not about experiences, nor nothingness, NOR about transcending both, it is about realizing the empty NATURE of all states and experiences as being empty of any I, me, mine, that there is no true subject to begin with... all these are only arising and passing states - from beingness to non-dual consciousness to nothingness. There is no more crystalizing anything or nothing into an absolute. This leads to dispassion, to release.

All sensations are still implicitly non-dual (not because it is a non-dual absolute that is 'one with' sensations, but that there is no subject to begin with that could be separate from or be inseparable from these transient, passing self-luminous sensations), but nothing substantial, and auto-released.