Some clarification on SE?

That said, I am attending a symposium on mapping in contemplative traditions in May. What I will have to say there I have no idea. Maybe as it gets closer to the date I'll talk to various of you and pool some of our thoughts on such things to take with me.

Chris Marti wrote: Ona, I'm not a big fan of mapping and modeling, period, but I know I'm pushing that rope uphill. I acknowledge that maps and models have some validity, but need to be taken with moderation, like booze

I doubt mapping based on the fruits of practice is any more accurate than other mapping protocols. Human beings are all so different and things show up in such non-standard ways that serve to reinforce my skepticism.

Caveat -- this is purely my own opinion.

Ok so this is interesting, and I feel like I agree with it but academically I don't know crap about the Dharma and terminology. Throwing away (or at least setting aside) the maps and all that is a delightful idea for me because I'm way too lazy to remember or spend a great deal of time studying what all these different terms are and how they relate to each other. However, on one hand we are all after Enlightenment and we all (presumably) still have work to do. So where are the markers for the "Enlightenment" and how does one know one is "done"? Or is there even a done and is Enlightenment really a thing that can be quantified? Is it really just knowledge of reality?

My thoughts on this is that just because mapping can be unproductive does not mean there are not certain insights or changes in perspective that are not part of waking up. It's just that saying that "they must arise in exactly this sequence in exactly this format or it doesn't count" can be unproductive.

Ona Kiser wrote: My thoughts on this is that just because mapping can be unproductive does not mean there are not certain insights or changes in perspective that are not part of waking up. It's just that saying that "they must arise in exactly this sequence in exactly this format or it doesn't count" can be unproductive.

Yeah that seems like it should be common sense, but again, I really have no basis for comparison to understand how much I really understand about any of this. Strictly from experience, learning some things about the various maps did two things for me in the early stages of practice. First and most importantly they helped me to realize that this Enlightenment stuff was for real, people had studied it and achieved it. So they first showed it me it was possible. The second achievement of the maps was to confuse the crap out of me because they are all (as far as I can comprehend - although I can be a bit thick at times) different and don't appear to have much in common (to a noob like me).

I've got to say that the first was essential. If it were not for the maps I would probably still hold the idea that Enlightenment/Awakening was only for super special holy people like Buddha and Jesus and stuff, on the other hand, the second is probably getting in my way now.

It's funny though, isn't it? For certain people - perhaps geeky types, or intellectual types - seeing something written down in a chart means "wow, it can really happen!!" Others want to see fMRI printouts and academic journal articles. "Ah, it's real now!" they say.

For others, meeting people in person who have had awakening experiences might be the thing that makes them go "wow, I can do this". For others, hearing a tale of a spiritual teacher from long ago might be enough. Or simply having some personal experiences of their own might be enough to make them think "wow, there's something else going on here, something I need to investigate. I'm going to do that."

So the fact that maps inspired you (Duane, others) may speak more to your own personal cultural biases, background, education, etc than to the maps being useful in and of themselves...

jake wrote:
awakeningtoreality.blogspot.com/2009/09/...ce-and-non-dual.html

The distinction between 'experience' and 'realization' might be helpful to you, Duane; it seems to speak to your question in a fundamental way. Also the section 4 of this last link goes into it.

If realization is the distinction between non-SE and SE then I guess I got it. It was not a "Eureka!" of an "Aha!" moment though. It was more like a really slow dawning of "Oh, I get it." now what? But then again, I feel like SE was supposed to be such a big deal that I must not "get it" yet because I'm not all that impressed.

"so that there is an instant recognition that the ‘agent’ is extra, in actual experience it does not exist. It is an immediate realization that experiential reality has always been so and the existence of a center, a base, a ground, a source has always been assumed."

^ I get that, however it does not permeate my experience. I forget it and remember it. I have experienced it, but maybe not realized it?

Do you think, Duane, that having had a direct experience of that might be why some of your relationship to stuff in your life has changed? I think it's common and never true to expect that the peak experience of a realization (the aha moment, or blip of nondual experience, or whatever) will then become a permanent state. That's in some ways still that habitual desire to seek a sort of drug in practice, or to have a very specific type of altered state or body sensation be the baseline of day to day existence.

Rather, the realization tends to spring forth from a flash of direct experience, and the wisdom gained from that moment becomes part of ones new perspective, allowing one to deepen ones practice, see ones shit more clearly, see how phenomena arise ever more clearly, etc etc. Each time one of those blips of direct experience happens, we tend to get jolted into yet a deeper way of seeing, more shit drops away. It can be stuff we don't even know what it is dropping away - or we don't even really notice the dropping away until some weeks later when something happens and we don't react the way we used to...

Ona Kiser wrote: Do you think, Duane, that having had a direct experience of that might be why some of your relationship to stuff in your life has changed? I think it's common and never true to expect that the peak experience of a realization (the aha moment, or blip of nondual experience, or whatever) will then become a permanent state. That's in some ways still that habitual desire to seek a sort of drug in practice, or to have a very specific type of altered state or body sensation be the baseline of day to day existence.

Rather, the realization tends to spring forth from a flash of direct experience, and the wisdom gained from that moment becomes part of ones new perspective, allowing one to deepen ones practice, see ones shit more clearly, see how phenomena arise ever more clearly, etc etc. Each time one of those blips of direct experience happens, we tend to get jolted into yet a deeper way of seeing, more shit drops away. It can be stuff we don't even know what it is dropping away - or we don't even really notice the dropping away until some weeks later when something happens and we don't react the way we used to...

Yes, it is most certainly why my perspective and relationships have changed. I also understand what you're saying about the drug thing in practice, however I do not experience non-dual awareness regularly and I've been thinking of that as a key benchmark of Enlightenment. Is that not accurate? I have experienced it, understand it, if I've realized it or not, I'm still vague on that. I feel different, I see different, I notice what drives people and what they are "lacking" (?) (not seeing). It's clear to me when others (and usually myself) are behaving from a reactive position. Again, SE shouldn't really matter, and I guess doesn't in a way. I'm just tired of chasing it and am ready to mark that one done and move on. But I also don't want to be delusional

Ona Kiser wrote: My thoughts on this is that just because mapping can be unproductive does not mean there are not certain insights or changes in perspective that are not part of waking up. It's just that saying that "they must arise in exactly this sequence in exactly this format or it doesn't count" can be unproductive.

This take on the maps seems fairly common, at least in the circles I am familiar with. I think, and could be very wrong, that the maps are only strictly adhered to within the traditions they generated from. Just like Christianity has all kinds of different ways of being a Christian, based on a certain set of guidelines. Perhaps the maps are merely cultural guidelines and only strictly relevant if one is some sort of fundamentalist, or deeply traditional. ?

Nondual awareness is something that grows gradually, bit by bit, (which is why various traditions have paths, levels, stages, etc.). So it would be unproductive to expect a very intense ongoing non stop nondual awareness after an fairly early stage experience ("stream entry").

I'd actually suggest that your expectations of any stage of awakening are guaranteed not to be met, because that's part of the physics of it. It's not about your expectations. So it cannot meet them simply by nature of what it is. No matter how much you try to change your expectations to fit what it might be like, that whole game is just useless. Just fair warning.

Ona Kiser wrote: Nondual awareness is something that grows gradually, bit by bit, (which is why various traditions have paths, levels, stages, etc.). So it would be unproductive to expect a very intense ongoing non stop nondual awareness after an fairly early stage experience ("stream entry").

I'd actually suggest that your expectations of any stage of awakening are guaranteed not to be met, because that's part of the physics of it. It's not about your expectations. So it cannot meet them simply by nature of what it is. No matter how much you try to change your expectations to fit what it might be like, that whole game is just useless. Just fair warning.

I hear ya. After reading MCTB and all the wild and terrible things that happen to people going through these changes, I assumed I had a pretty bumpy road ahead, but I'm lazy and it's been pretty mellow. So SE or not, I'm still no closer to certainty about that, but it is like gum on the bottom of my shoe. It's not going anywhere. I can't be put back in the matrix, but I'm still shaking it off. That's what it's like (where I am now).

Chris Marti wrote:

"... Nondual awareness is something that grows gradually..."

It does? It showed up for me all in one Big Event. So, um, maybe your map is off

That's it. I'm buying a BMW and voting Republican.

Chris Marti wrote: I approve of the former and suggest you seriously rethink the latter.

Eric wrote: The first letting go of the selfing processes?

Yeah, ok. Don't know how I missed this one (sorry Eric), but yeah, this is dead on. I feel that.

Chris Marti wrote:

"... Nondual awareness is something that grows gradually..."

It does? It showed up for me all in one Big Event. So, um, maybe your map is off

hm. maybe. but i wouldn't say that my awareness, understanding, or experience is the same now as three years ago. and perhaps relevant to distinguish ND experience and ND awareness, too? hm.

what does it mean to access it?

that makes sense. just that in the context of previous posts/duane's question, i don't think that was true for me until awakening, not at earlier stages like stream entry, so in that sense it was a gradual process .

I think the misunderstanding is that there are massive Non-Dual type experiences (i.e. - fusion of subject/object, seeing the sameness in everything) that are big wow type states, and then there is Non-Dual awareness, which is not a state, just a 'knowing', 'seeing' or whatever you want to call it. Or am I off base here?