BTW, here is his own suscribed model of awakening so that you
have an idea where he is coming from. His model is similar (not
exactly similar in terms of the explanation of stages, but in terms
of 'theme') to Thusness's Thusness/PasserBy's Seven Stages of
Enlightenment in that they both focus on the Insights and
Realization of the true nature of reality. (much like Zen's 5 ranks
of Tozan, 10 oxherding pictures, Tibetan 4 yogas, etc.) Except of
course Thusness does not use traditional terms like 'arhant' etc,
he simply stated his experience as-it-is without interpreting it
with traditional terms like 'arhantship' (which is often subject to
controversy and debate).
http://web.mac.com/danielmingram/iWeb/Daniel%20Ingram%27s%20Dharma%20Blog/The%20Blook/51EE7943-0A69-488A-B5B0-3C8F2EF7C5E8.html
31. Models of the
Stages of Enlightenment, IV
A Revised Four Path
Model
Here is my revised
version of the Four Path Model, and this is the primary model I use
when describing awakening, talking about my practice, and helping
others practice. I think that using the original terminology and
revising its definitions allows a lot of good material in the Pali
Canon to be used, thus provides a link to previously done work.
However, I realize that using terminology that already has such
deep cultural and dogmatic resonance may be a problem. For those
who want something new, I will shortly present a rephrasing of this
model that I call the Simple Model.
In the Revised Four
Path Model, Stream Enterers have discovered the complete
discontinuity that is called Fruition and sometimes called Nirvana
or Nibbana (Sanskrit vs. Pali). This is the first of two meanings
of Nirvana, with the other being Fourth Path. Stream enterers cycle
through the ñanas, know that awakening or some different
understanding from the norm is possible, and yet they do not have
all that different an experience of most sensations from those who
are not yet stream enterers. They may correctly extrapolate a lot
of good dharma insights from momentary experiences, particularly
high up in High Equanimity and the three moments before a Fruition,
but this is not the same as living there all the time. In fact,
most stream enterers have a very hard time describing how things
have changed in terms of their daily life.
Those of Second Path
have now completed a new insight cycle. They understand the process
by which enlightened beings make further progress and equate
progress with further cycles of insight, which is partially true.
More model-obsessed or intellectual practitioners at second path
may get very into fractal models, consciousness models,
enlightenment models, various integrative theories, and that sort
of thing at this stage of practice. Psychological issues tend to be
a bit more of a big deal during this phase, and psychological
development become interesting to them in some way. By this point
most people, though certainly not everyone, also have a pretty good
understanding of the basics of the samatha jhanas, and these can be
very fascinating. What they may be most bothered by is that cycle
after cycle of practice, duality remains the predominant experience
most of the time.
Those of Third Path
have shifted their understanding of what progress is from those of
Second Path, and have been to see that it is about seeing the
emptiness, selflessness, impermanence, etc. of sensations in daily
life and begin to see that they have the ability to do this. This
can be a long, developmental process from the first time they
notice this to it becoming a nearly complete experience. Thus,
Third Path tends to be a long path, though it doesn’t have to
be.
At the beginning of
Third Path, most practitioners think: “I’ll just complete more
cycles of insight, like I did before, and this will do the trick.”
They don’t tend to understand what it is they have attained all
that well yet, nor its deeper implications. By the mature stage of
Third Path, which can take months to years to show up, the
practitioner is more and more able to see the emptiness, selfless,
centerlessness, luminosity, etc. of phenomena in real-time, so much
so that it can be very difficult to notice what artificial
dualities remain.
As they cycle, they
will enter new territory, possibly causing some uncertainty or
instability, and with each Review phase they tend to really feel
that they have done it until they begin to notice the limits of
their practice. There can be this nagging something in the
background that things aren’t done, and yet figuring out exactly
what the problem is can be very slippery. It is a bit like being in
the stages before stream entry, trying to figure out what exactly
needs to be done. They need to notice something that has nothing to
do with the cycles, to finally untangle the knot of perception at
its core, but doing this can be a real trick. It is a very strange
place, as one seems to know the dharma all the way to the end and
yet somehow it just isn’t quite enough. In that vein, it is
interesting to note that I wrote the vast majority of this book
while I was some sort of anagami, and on reflection I got just
about everything right. My emphases are slightly different now, but
the basics are all the same.
As things progress,
anagamis begin to tire of the cycles to a small or large degree and
begin to look to something outside of them or not related to them
for the answer to the final question. Finally, the cycles of
insight, the states of concentration, the powers, and all the other
perks and prerogatives of their stage of awakening or concentration
abilities (if they developed them) hold no appeal and only lead to
more unsatisfying cycles.
I completed around
27 full, complete insight cycles with mind-blowing A&P Events,
Ass-kicking Dark Nights, Equanimity phases, and what seemed to be
brand new, fresh Fruitions and Review phases between third and
fourth path. There is nothing special about that number, as I
mentioned previously in my descriptions of the problem that I call
Twelfth Path. The later cycles got faster and faster, so that by
the end it seemed I was whipping one out every few weeks or even
every few days, but they still seemed to be leading nowhere. It was
only when I had gotten so sick of the cycles and realized that they
were leading nowhere that I was able to see what has nothing to do
with the cycles, which also wasn’t anything except a strange
untangling of the knot of perception of them. The cycles, for
better or worse, have continued just the same. Thus, there is not
much point in counting cycles or paths, as they don’t necessarily
correlate well with anything past the first two or three, and
issues of backsliding can really make things complex, as I
explained earlier.
Finishing up my
Revised Four Path Model, arahats have finally untangled the knot of
perception, dissolved the sense of the center point actually being
the center point, no longer fundamentally make a separate Self out
of the patterns of sensations that they used to, even though those
same patterns of sensations continue. This is a different
understanding from those of Third Path in some subtle way, and
makes this path about something that is beyond the paths. This is
also poetically called the opening of the Wisdom Eye. What is
interesting is that I could write about this stage quite well when
I was an anagami, but that is a whole different world from knowing
it like arahats know it.
The Wisdom Eye may
seem to blink initially. It may go through cycles of flashing open
just after a Fruition and then slowly fading over a few hours (at
least on retreat) as each round of physical sensations, then mental
sensations, then complex emotional formations, then lastly
fundamental formations such as inquiry itself move through and
become integrated into this new, correct and direct perception of
reality as it is. Review cycles may occur many times during each
flash, but when the eye is open they seem rather irrelevant in
comparison to keeping the level of clarity and acceptance high
enough to keep the eye open. When the eye fades, the familiar
insight cycles may seem like pure drudgery, with the focus being of
practice initially lost in getting through the cycles and then
gradually shifting again to getting clear enough to get the eye to
open again. The themes that occupy center stage go through a cycle
that is very much like a progress cycle.
Finally, the Wisdom
Eye cycles and insight cycles all converge, and the thing stays
open from then on, which is to say that at that point it all seems
the same whether or not the eye is open, which it actually was.
That being seen, nothing can erode or disturb the centerlessness of
perspective. Done is what is to be done, and life goes on. That
there are arahats who have opened the Wisdom Eye but had it fade
and those who have opened it and had it stay open is rarely
mentioned but worth knowing.
For the arahat who
has kept the thing open, there is nothing more to be gained on the
ultimate front from insight practices, as “done is what is to be
done”. That said, insight practices can still be of great benefit
to them for a whole host of reasons, there is a ton they can learn
just like everyone else about everything else there is to learn.
They can grow, develop, change, work and participate in this
strange human drama just like everyone else.
A Simple Model
In earlier versions
of this work, I had a model called The Heart Sutra Model. The
Simple Model is the less mysterious, stripped down version of that
earlier model, though in its essence it is basically the same.
While in one sense it is also rephrasing of the Revised Four Path
Model, as it has no numbers, and is free of the traditional names,
it has some advantages over that terminology.
I present this
somewhat novel model here because it focuses on real insight
directly and treats any emotional benefits of this as side effects.
Further, there are often too many cycles of insight before
arahatship, making the Four Path model troublesome. This phenomena
of too many cycles (which I will sometimes call “paths” with a
lowercase “p”) between each of the Four Paths gets worse as one
works towards final awakening. As Bill Hamilton put it, and I have
learned the hard way, “The arahat fractal is vast.”
The Simple Model
does not reinforce fascination with content, nor with life denying
ideals or limited emotional range models in the way that the
traditional Four Path Model often does. It does not tempt one to
count paths. It keeps the focus on precise inquiry into the truth
and one’s experience of it or lack thereof.
This model basically
says that enlightenment is about direct insight that progressively
reveals something different in the relationship to the field of
experience and gradually allows things in it to be held in their
proper proportion. Thus, it is a Non-Duality Model.
The first
understanding is that sensations are sensations, thoughts are
thoughts, and this forms the basis of further inquiry. When the
universal characteristics of these sensations begin to be seen,
this represents growth in understanding. When the whole sense field
is known directly and completely as it is, this can cause an
entrance into Fruition through one of the Three Doors, and
represents the first stage of awakening.
When one appreciates
the cycles of the process of awakening and has completed at least
one more cycle, this is the next stage. When one begins to
appreciate the emptiness, luminosity, centerlessness,
agentlessness, etc. of phenomena in real-time and this becomes the
focus of practice rather than Fruition, this is the next stage.
When the sense of the watcher, observer, subject, controller, doer,
etc. is seen completely as it is and the knot of perception
untangles, that simple, fundamental way of perceiving things is the
next stage of awakening. When that untangling stays untangled, that
is the next stage. When that understanding is integrated into our
lives, that is the next phase, though I am not sure it can be
defined as a stage rather than as a process.
The problem is that
the traditions seem to want to make this understanding into so much
more than it is, such as add ideals of emotional perfection onto
this. There is some truth in the models dealing with emotions, but
it has to do with things moving through faster and being seen more
clearly. It does not have anything to do with bad emotions not
arising. I hate to even go here, as my goal is to give the
emotional models the bashing they richly deserve, but I also want
to not throw the baby out with the bathwater. Thus, here it
goes.
As the deep-seated
perceptual sense of a separate, continuous, permanent, observing
Agent stops being extrapolated from the same old patterns of
sensations that seemed to be those, there is this wider inclusive
something that can come into the consciousness of the enlightened
individual, depending on their level of awakening. There is also a
slowly growing directness of perception that comes as reality is
not filtered so exclusively through thought. These two can combine
to give the emotions of enlightened beings less sticking power, so
that they may move through more quickly than for those that are not
enlightened, and also may be seen more quickly and clearly as they
arise and vanish. There may also be less blind contraction into
thoughts and emotions and a wider perspective, thus giving the
other parts of the brain more of a chance of creating moderated
responses to the emotions. That said, even when seen through, there
seems to be a biological component to how emotions move through
that can only be expedited so much.
Anyone who thinks
these highly qualified statements are anything like a vision of
emotional perfection or the elimination of all negative emotions is
not paying attention! That is the last thing I wish to imply. I
merely wish to say that there is some increased clarity about our
basic human experience and it can help, but that is all. That said,
you would be amazed how angry, lustful or ignorant enlightened
beings can be, and they can still do all sorts of stupid things
based on these emotions, just like everyone else. The ability to
moderate responses to emotions can sometimes give the impression
that those emotions have been attenuated, but that is not the same
thing, and there is my nice transition to the Action
Models.