Jetsun

From the maps I have been working with they say the letting go of earthly attachments is the first stage, which is an awakening out of the human form into the recognition of the primordial awareness which is always present in all situations, that which was present before you were born and will survive after you are dead. Yet that is just a first stage and relatively common, there are hundreds of people on YouTube who talk about this realisation in one way or another thinking that that is enlightenment. (Master Wang's realisation might have nothing to do with this so its not meant as a commentary comment on him.) The second stage is that there is a bouncing back down into the human form to liberate all that remains, to bring the awakening to all that is in pain and confused there, which you could say is the stage of unconditional love or awakening of the heart. Which is relatively rare. But after that there is a third stage, which they call in Zen the awakening of the gut, which is the most primordial stage or awakening out of both existence and non existence. Which is very rare. Perhaps all three could be considered enlightenment, i dont know, and it is just a map, one of many, which may not operate in linear time. The Zen teacher Arvis Joen Justi said that enlightenment was "simply standing in your own two shoes".

Good questions, not that I know the answer but I am in the camp that there are always deeper levels. Even if there is some sort of final perfected state for the individual bodymind to achieve by that point your identity will have transcended individuality altogether and therefore there is still the rest of the world, (which you now see as part of yourself, or at least not separate) which needs refining and liberation, so where does that end? What I have found is that when you ask people what they mean by enlightenment nobody really can give any sort of a straight answer or really knows what they mean by that term. Many modern teachers talk about "awakening" now because it is a term less loaded, although I don't think that should be equated with the same thing as what people historically mean when they talk about enlightenment. Awakening generally means that you wake up to the fact that you aren't the person you thought you were your whole life, you are altogether something different, but after awakening there is still a long refinement process, its not a final stage, rather in a sense it is just the beginning.

Perhaps people with more yang resonate better with the Sex Pistols, or perhaps people use the Sex Pistols as a way of expressing their yang. I'm sure you can explain it through Taoist principles if you wanted to.

The definition of Arhat varies between which Buddhist school and sutra you read. Ultimately there is no difference between an Arhat and a Buddha as there is no difference between a Buddha a regular joe. But like I said a Buddha has the capacity to convey and transmit and has less interference in their clarity, so relatively a Buddha is a purer vessel than a Arhat. But a person can still have the same realisation as the Buddha without being able to speak from or function from that place of realisation very effectively. Historically people generally get to be considered Buddhas when they rejuvenate the Dharma and pass on their realisations to many different students. But also often when sutras talk about Buddha they aren't talking about a person or a state at all, they are talking that which is beyond words beyond mind.

Ah I thought you just meant normal people, not normal enlightened people. Ultimately there is no difference, but Buddha's like Gautama Buddha were exceptional in their ability to teach, to be able to convey and transmit their realisations to a wide variety of people with different capacities and minds. In that sense they had to have completely embodied their realisations, so they were no longer speaking from old conditioning in their systems. There are many people with the same realisation as the Buddha who can't convey it to anyone else, or see no need to, or their perception is still affected by latent tendencies and conditioning.

A Buddha doesn't know who he is, whereas normal people keep insisting they are this or that.

The realm of being stuck in mental dualities, being defined by identifying with one position in opposition to another, is the realm of Samsara which the Buddhists talk about, the realm of suffering. While I respect Dawkins for his intellect and contributions to science clearly his perspective is limited. To live purely from the intellect is a form of avoidance of life, an avoidance of deeper emotional intelligence as well as deeper spiritual truths. Rowan Williams is an intellectual too, he is now a master at a college at Cambridge university. One of the things which a healer told me recently was that many of the really brilliant intellectual people have a deep trauma in their root chakra, so all their energy is constantly brought up to the mind as a means of avoiding the trauma. In Professor Dawkins autobiography he admits that he was sexually abused as a child, but he says it didn't affect him and doesn't upset him, in other words he is completely emotionally dissociated from his experiences. It is probably too terrifying for him to move out of identifying himself with intellectual positions and it requires a constant fight against those who threaten the position, which isn't the most healthy way to live a life. To be able to transcend identifying with intellectual positions altogether is a movement towards sanity, unfortunately as you say it is very rare.

I haven't watched the whole interview but it surprises me if Rowan Williams says that objective truth can be understood through the intellect. I am no theologian but as I understand it even many of the old Catholic philosophers and theologians said that God can't be comprehended through the intellect, that it is based upon mystery. I can see how moving out of identification with the intellect can cause a dark night because the way we have been taught to perceive reality our whole lives is crumbling away, in a sense we move into a different realm than all our friends and family, in that sense it is a death. But in terms of moving out of a dark night according to St John of the Cross, who the term comes from, there is nothing you can do to move out of a dark night, which is why it is so dark. If you could do anything then you would be able to keep hold of attachments to things like a sense of your own power over life, so it wouldn't be a humbling. St John basically says just have faith that God is working on you even if you feel completely helpless, alone and disconnected.

In your direct experience examine where sound comes from and where it goes to. Then examine what it moves through and arises within while you are aware of it. Then look at what it is that is aware of sound. Does not sound arise from, goes to and move within silence? and is it not silence which is aware of sound?

I heard that Adyashanti is going to be on Oprah this weekend so before he goes all mainstream I am using this post to come out AA style as a big fan of his, I know he isn't popular with the official Buddhist boards who for whatever reason don't see him as legit or see him as new age, but I have been reading Buddhist books and visiting teachers for many years including some of those who are masters of the highest Tibetan lineages and I find Adyashanti to be by far one of the most articulate and clear teachers I have found. I doubted him for a long time but what I found remarkable after is that after hearing and watching maybe a hundred of his videos and talks every time he expresses himself it is spontaneous and always talks unrehearsed directly from personal experience, he doesn't require old sutras or elaborate intellectual concepts to express what he is saying (although he can refer to them if needed), rather he speaks directly from being. In a lot of his talks he is answering questions from the public who are allowed to ask him anything, so he is always being put on the spot and being tested yet he always comes out with a clear coherent answer. People question his Buddhist credentials but the fact is that he studied with a number of Zen teachers and lineages for about twenty years and his master authorised him to teach, but yet he doesn't say he teaches Buddhism because the whole point of Buddhism is that it should wake you up out of all ism's including Buddhism, so he is no longer identified as being a Buddhist, so therefore he puts no definition on what he teaches now. This is one of his best videos in my opinion https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j2wcqjFC13M And you can get a lot of free material from his website

So there is one person on an internet forum who once said that Adyashanti once gave shaktipat. Not exactly the strongest evidence to go by, especially as one of the main principles of his teaching is no direct interference. Plus what does it even mean that he put someone in hospital, it could be that the kundalini was temporarily hitting blockages and causing pain, the person could be perfectly ok the next day. Who knows. Obviously the person in question didn't hold it against him and the people who were affected aren't publicly complaining. All I meant by saying that he is one who has dropped the raft is that he studied Buddhism for a long time and got a lot out of it but it came to a point that he realised that there were aspects of restrictive cultural conditioning contained within his lineage, so in order to be completely free he had to transcend it. Buddhism was a teaching tool which brought him so far and in the end he had to move beyond it, so put the raft down , which is why he doesn't say now that he is a Buddhist teacher even though that is his background, and those who are deeply attached to the trappings of Buddhism often criticise him for that. He still advises people do do practices, to meditate, do enquiry and go to retreats if they want to awaken, in certain respects he is completely the opposite of the people who say you can do nothing to awaken.

Adyashanti is probably one of most lucid and clear teachers you will find. The real test of a teacher is how many of their students they can bring to realisation and in that regard Adyashanti has one of the best records going. Really all he does is point out the obvious and ask basic questions, so I don't know why some get offended by him. He is one who has put the raft down which is why some who are deeply attached to Buddhist trappings don't like him but he still pays respect to his lineage. That stuff about shaktipat is just an obscure rumour. There is no evidence he ever gave shakipat , that sort of forced introduction is against one of the core principles of his teaching so I would be incredibly surprised if its true. He teaches from a Zen tradition which has nothing to do with shaktipat or anything like that.

You are all that already

What is it of us that dies and what is it that remains?

That's one way of looking at it. To me that verges too much towards nihilism for my liking. I am not talking about physical rebirth rather the continuation of consciousness in the subtle realms after death. There are all sorts of accounts of people receiving teachings from other subtle realms, some historical Tibetan Buddhist masters received their entire training in the dream realm. I myself have had experiences meditating on masters who have physically died a long time ago. You are focusing on what causes rebirth of the ego, but did the Buddha simply vanish and dissolve into nothing when he became enlightened and the process of graspng and aversion fell away? no there was an aware being who continued on existing even when the cause of rebirth of a seperate ego was extinguished

It's non-existent and yet it exists, are you non-existent now as you read this? Many masters reappear in this world many years after their death, where were they and what were they doing in that time? I see plenty of indication that there is a possibility that we can move on to other realms upon leaving this one. Whether there is benefit or not in speculating I don't know, the main problem will be if we become too sure about what we think is going to happen, discussion could help undermine such rigitity.

When the body dies we don't know what realm our awareness will enter. So in that sense it is a journey to somewhere new and unknown, what happens then is pretty much up for debate as far as I can see, every expert has a different opinion. Why is the theory of soul contracts and meeting Celestial Masters any less likely than going into purgatory or a Bardo realm or something similar? My perception of life isn't as fatalistic as everything is already predetermined by the previous moments, I see and perceive a force of creativity and freedom at play which isn't bound by the past.

How do you know, do you have memories of previous deaths?

In essence my approach to the mind has changed in recent years, I have found trying to manipulate the mind or change it is basically just another way to go into resistance with it, so it is another trick of unconsciousness to keep you engaged and feeding its stories and existence. So I find going directly to what is below the mind either in terms of basic awareness or energetic sensitivity is the best way to manage it because then you invest no energy in what the mind weaves, so it loses its power. I am open to the mind becoming more silent and I'm sure that there are people with minds much more silent than mine, but who has a mind which only produces a few thoughts a day? There might be Yogis who have temporary experiences like that but I doubt they can last longer than hours or maybe days and only in the right circumstances.

Why am I doing what I'm doing? Eg why am I meditating What do I really want from my life? From my practice. I heard an interview with Adyashanti the other day and he says over the years he has met thousands of practitioners and very few of them could answer the simple question of why they were meditating with much clarity or precision or what they really wanted out of it. Which is a pretty strange situation really.

Thanks for your pity, but personally I feel quite blessed with the way it is going. You can learn a great deal about the tool of your mind by studying it, but it can easily just be another way of avoiding and putting off the truth of discovering who you really are.

I wasn't recommending repression, I was saying that it is the only way I know of to create the perception of the mind being clear for a great length of time, but it isn't a healthy recommended way to go about things. After a few years of regular meditation I personally only experience the mind being silent for moments, its the minds job to keep moving to keep thinking non stop until your last breath, its inevitable, but its not a problem for meditation because what the mind arises within is always silent, always still and at peace, so I recommend paying attention to that which is eternal rather than trying to silence the mind. Whatever the mind creates is temporary and self liberating anyway so why the need to do anything with it other than let it dissolve naturally? When it is recognised that the mind is just a tool and not who you are you can just let it be and do whatever it wants to do, no problem, no struggling to change it or make it more silent than it already is. When you hear a sound in meditation it arises and leaves your awareness without any resistance or trying to silence it, the space the sound arises within and moves through is not disturbed, so why not treat thoughts and whatever the mind produces in the same way?

I don't see how this answers my question. The mind creates Samsara and Nirvana but there is that which is beyond our regular mind, which is direct perception "Our mind is the basis for everything" will be true or not depending on what level we are talking about. The thinking mind may cause all the Samsara and Nirvana we experience but it is a different thing to say that the thinking mind created the tree and car outside of my window, that tree can be known through a direct energetic perception without thought coming into it at all, or it can be known to exist by others verifying its existence without my mind creating it.

If our fundamental nature is unable to create then what is continually creating all that which is going on around us? It seems to me that one of the core features of life is its infinite ability to create.

The thing which often keeps such emotional things stuck is the process of trying to get rid of them.