Open Enlightenment

Micro-patronage is a macro-flop

Spurred on by the success of other sites employing the micro-patronage business model, I had hoped to finance the Open Enlightenment project with recurring low monthly donations by generous readers. However, this approach has always sat uncomfortably with Dunc, and so after a good deal of debate and deliberation, I have relented and cancelled the forthcoming micro-patronage drive.

This does mean that certain objectives have been put on the back burner, but we are still open to donations and – as Duncan has been fond of telling me recently – we are still going to be doing everything we have planned anyway!

Onwards and upwards…

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Doubting Thomas

Hearing that I’d set myself the goal of enlightenment, someone quipped: What if you get enlightened and then realise you don’t like it?

At the time I thought this was stupid. Now, I’m not so sure.

It was March 2009 when I broke through into fourth path – or ‘full’ enlightenment, according to the Therevada model. Beforehand, I could see emptiness pretty much constantly, but it seemed to occupy a particular region in the field of awareness; ‘it’ and ‘me’ appeared distinct. On the commencement of fourth path, this sense of separation collapsed. Emptiness expanded within awareness to include self. In every direction I discovered emptiness. ‘Inwards’ was just another direction; there was no longer anything special about what appeared to be ‘internal’ sensations.

At first it was difficult to put a finger on quite what had happened. Enlightenment is not an act of will – it happens regardless – so with it comes no implicit realisation of what it is. Enlightenment isn’t like putting a hat on your head; it’s like having a hat drop on you. You feel it and wonder: ‘Hey! What the fuck is this?’

Most immediately, enlightenment presented itself as having nothing to do with any of the practices I’d been engaged in. The idea that meditation – or any activity whatsoever – had any bearing upon it was laughable. So this was how I spent the first few days, walking around, seeing emptiness everywhere and realising there was nothing to do and nowhere to go because ‘just this’ was ‘it’ all along.

Alan had been there a couple of weeks already. ‘Now try some Ramana Maharshi self-inquiry,’ he suggested. ‘It’s mental!’

I took his advice and recoiled from the profound shock of it. When I asked ‘Who am I?’ formerly the answer was always in the shape of an idea or sensation. But now the answer was crystal clear and returned in the form of an experience: emptiness. That ‘thing’ beyond awareness, which was neither an idea, sensation, feeling, thought or perception, which was infinite, eternal, changeless and unconditioned – well, that was ‘me’. And I could see also how this realisation of ‘I am that‘ is available right now to everyone on the planet.

But this is where the warm and fuzzy part of the story ends, because the past six months have been more of a struggle than I ever expected. That quip about ‘what if you get enlightened and discover you don’t like it?’ has returned to haunt me.

Here are some words describing how I’ve felt since that big special moment back in March: doubtful, depressed, frustrated and pissed off.

‘You can’t be enlightened, then,’ is the obvious rejoinder, in which case I point the reader back to what I’ve written above. None of that recognition of emptiness in all things has ever gone away or faded since the moment it first reared up. Abiding non-dual awareness has taken up home in me and seems resolved to stay. It’s unaffected by anything I do or not do. If I’m happy, I see it; but so too if I’m miserable, bored, being stupid or acting like a git. Becoming kinder or happier, therefore, does not depend on my gaining some supposed ‘deeper insight’ into the nature of reality. How can you go ‘deeper’ into something than realising it doesn’t exist? Being kinder and happier depends simply on practising those behaviours.

It’s doubt that has been my biggest tormentor. The commentator in my head continues to insist: ‘This can’t be real. This can’t be it. You’re going to lose it, aren’t you? Is it still there? Go on, check! You’re deluding yourself.’

But every time I check I see the same. Yet this constant checking fails to abate the need to check again and test and console myself with the proof of it, which is then immediately doubted all over again.

It’s stupid. I see it clearly, but that doesn’t prevent it from happening. It reminds me of the friend of a friend who was diagnosed as schizophrenic: ‘I know the voices aren’t real,’ this person reportedly said, ‘but it doesn’t stop me hearing them.’

I don’t have schizophrenia; just an acute case of karma. When I meditate now, the focus has shifted slightly from the nature of stuff arising to its nature as arising stuff. It comes, persists, insists, impermanent, without essence and unsatisfactory, but it arises nevertheless – according to some configuration that lies far beyond my personal awareness.

We generally label this unacknowledged configuration in the way our thoughts and impulses arise with the word ‘habit’. I never dreamed that one of the main lessons of enlightenment is how deep and intractable the grip of habit is upon our lives.

Habit is empty, of course. It’s not a thing in itself but, like everything, phenomena created from a circumstantial pattern of other phenomena, passing itself off as something distinct. But habit doesn’t need to be absolute (impossible, naturally) in order to exercise an iron grip; it’s the position where it sits that gives it its power. In the realm of the senses, whatever presents to awareness comes via the sense organs. Analogously, in the realm of the mind, arising thoughts and ideas seem first to have been filtered through a layer of habit.

Looking back across my life and considering the habits of thought I’ve acquired from education and experience, it’s clear that doubt and negativity have always been my trusty friends.

I test ideas by attacking them and doing my best to rip them down until there’s nothing standing. If anything remains, then I take this as a sign it might be true. It’s my rule not to take on trust anything I haven’t first tried to tear apart.

This hasn’t been an intellectual choice. (I doubt that such a thing is possible.) Early upbringing and character have determined how I approach ideas. I’ve never adopted a philosophy that I haven’t seen through and grew sick of in time. This has led to dark episodes of disillusionment and confusion – but I don’t altogether regret them. I couldn’t have arrived at the insights I’ve accumulated without this attitude, for the good reason that I’ve never spared myself or my own experience from this same urge to tear things apart.

Skepticism gets things done. Negation is probably our most powerful intellectual tool. Think, for instance, of how vipassana depends upon rejecting every single notion or idea and proceeding on the basis of immediate experience alone. Or think of how the conceptualisation of God, the Absolute, only gets anywhere when approached in the apophatic mode – i.e. in purely negative terms.

The Vimuttimagga categorises people into three basic types: the walker in passion, the walker in hate, and the walker in infatuation. My type, the one that ‘is given to fault-finding’ and ‘does not cleave (to what is good)’ (p. 56) is the walker in hate.

Each type works toward self-realisation at a particular speed and finds the going more or less difficult. The walker in passion gets there quickly, because he or she is accepting, intent on good and faithful to their ideals. Well, good for him! Yet, surprisingly, the walker in hate gets there quickly too, because ‘hate and intelligence are alike owing to three traits: non-clinging, searching for faults, repulsion’ (p. 56).

Being of a destructive cast of mind is helpful on the path to enlightenment. But – as I’ve realised – those same habits may not prove so helpful afterwards, because you cannot tear down emptiness. When emptiness is apparent in everything, the capacity to negate is pointless, self-contradictory. And equally, you cannot doubt the absolute; doubt is relative when set against the absolute, and is rendered futile.

Yet my habits of a life-time are not going to vanish overnight. Especially not when they’ve proved so helpful and successful in the past.

The Incredulity of Thomas (Caravaggio).

I take consolation in the story of St. Thomas, the one who doubted the resurrection until he’d personally seen the risen Christ and stuck his fingers in Christ’s wounds. ‘Do you believe because you see me?’ says Christ to Thomas. ‘How happy are those who believe without seeing me!’ (John 20: 29).

Exoteric Christianity is big on the notion of belief, so it’s easy to read this as Jesus admonishing Thomas for his lack of faith. But I think Christ is simply pointing out that Thomas might be less miserable if he didn’t keep constantly testing the fuck out of everything.

The risen body of Christ is not an animated corpse, but a metaphor for the body post-enlightenment. (The dharmakaya, it’s called in Buddhism.) To stick your fingers in the wounds of Christ is the pointless attempt to probe or grasp at absolute emptiness with the relative mind. Is it still there? Is it truly real? Is He truly resurrected? These are futile attempts to establish a proof beyond that which is proof already.

Indeed, happy are those not stupid enough for this!

Reference

Upatissa (1995). Vimuttimagga (‘The Path of Freedom’), trans. Rev. N.R.M. Ehara, Soma Thera, Kheminda Thera. Kandy, Sri Lanka: Buddhist Publication Society.

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The #1 Secret to Achieving Enlightenment Here and Now, in This Lifetime

Authoritarian gurus will try and take it from you; enlightenment doubters and cynics will try to undermine it.

When we choose to ignore the advice of a guide or teacher we dishonour it; when we fail to believe in ourselves and each other we lose it.

The number one secret to enlightenment is not a technique, a special mantra or a bizarre diet. It’s much more human than that.

The number one secret to achieving enlightenment here and now in this lifetime – as I have done and many, many others walking this planet right now have done – is integrity.

Is that all?

Perhaps you were hoping for something along the lines of a pseudo-mystical notion of interconnectedness and an instruction in positive thinking, but then there’s no accounting for taste.

We can all exercise integrity; I just think many people don’t know how. So here it is:

Integrity means that we are honest with ourselves and each other, on the basis that we are all capable, trustworthy and good.

No, honestly.

Do you really believe there is such a thing as enlightenment? Integrity means you consider on what basis you do or do not believe such a phenomenon exists. Who or what is your source for what you believe enlightenment is?

If you doubt such a phenomenon exists, be honest with yourself: do you have an accurate and believable description of what enlightenment is, and do you really have sufficient grounds for believing it isn’t real?

If you believe enlightenment exists, be honest with yourself: on what grounds is the description of enlightenment you believe in accurate and believable? What are your grounds for accepting the reality of such a description?

It takes integrity to understand that just because you have read a few New Age paperbacks you are not qualified to identify the ‘Big Special Event’ you have just experienced as enlightenment; or that reading a few philosophy texts qualifies you to dismiss all ‘Big Special Events’ as nothing but overactive imagination, delirium, insanity, or lies.

We show a lack of integrity when we doubt ourselves, others and the countless millennia old spiritual traditions for claiming that not only does enlightenment exist, but that anyone can experience it should they be willing to investigate the field of spirituality, identify the good teachers from the bad, discover and apply the good maps and models of the territory leading up to and beyond enlightenment, practice a time tested daily meditation for life, and find others – especially those with more experience under their belts – with whom to learn with and from.

Integrity means that you would form your expectations of enlightenment on the teachings of people – both alive and dead – who have displayed integrity themselves. A teacher displays integrity when she is honest about what she does and does not understand, what she has and has not experienced, how someone can experience what she has experienced and openly encourages the discussion of doubts, confusion and difficulties that a student might be facing.

A student exercises integrity when he reports experiences that he thinks might be significant to the teacher, but openly accepts what advice or opinion his teacher gives. It takes courage to admit the inescapable truth that we make mistakes about a lot of things a lot of the time. It’s not a sign of weakness to be helped or guided by others.

It shows a spectacular lack of integrity when a teacher refuses to discuss enlightenment or anything else that a student might encounter, refuses to address or is unable to welcome doubts, confusion or difficulties raised by a student, or instructs a student to perform any action that brings harm – whether mental, emotional, physical or financial – to himself or anyone else.

It shows a lack of integrity when a student is unwilling to address or welcome any doubts, fears or concerns over his teacher’s conduct as a result of it harming himself or others.

Ultimately, if we want to experience enlightenment then we must be true to what we think may have happened, both internally as our practice progresses and externally as we observe our behaviour and the actions of our teachers. Internally, this means not being afraid to try and accurately assess our experience in the light of the many models we have for describing what type of ‘Big Special Event’ might have occurred, but also admitting the limit to which our experience and knowledge can help in such an assessment. Externally, this means not being afraid to openly discuss any doubts or difficulties we might be having with our teachers, or to admit where our own behaviour is falling short of our practice.

Entertaining fantasy about enlightenment or absolute doubt in the reality of spiritual experience are both symptoms of a lost belief in the inherent virtue of humanity. Integrity is faith in ourselves and each other, and without it we are lost.

I have every faith that we are capable, despite what authoritarian gurus might preach, or the arguments made by those patronising teachers who refuse to talk about enlightenment on the grounds that we will only harm ourselves with such knowledge.

If you can exercise integrity when it comes to spirituality, then you don’t have very far to go.

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Doubt and Faith

The last few weeks have been disappointing.

Website

First of all, people just do not want to do things unless money is involved. Three designers have promised to help, one because he owed a favour, and two on a gift economy basis.  Not one has delivered anything.

Someone promised to build a salesforce back end, with an additional site for an online community with all kinds of whizz-bang features. I learned how to write copy, then wrote all the copy for the new site, and fleshed out the IA, all in time for the deadline….which came and went.

As a result, I’ve given up on the idea of a bespoke site with a bespoke design; we’re going to stick with word press and apply a nice skin. Out of sheer desperation, I downloaded GIMP the other day in the hope that I can learn how to use a graphics package, and knock up a logo myself. How sad.

Then, instead of re-inventing the wheel, we can just use facebook, twitter and other social networking services to aid in the cause.

Detractors

Boy, have they been coming out of the wood work this month! I’m not talking about people who question stuff on this site (and elsewhere) as a genuine inquiry into the subject; I’m talking about ignorant, lazy, and patronising people who in some cases haven’t even bothered to read what they are criticising. Having an inbox full of such e-mails and websites full of such comments can really begin to challenge your faith in humanity. I have wondered a few times if I’ve really wasted the last few years of my life in trying to demonstrate that magick is a genuine enlightenment tradition, and if I’m wasting my time now in trying to demonstrate that enlightenment is a very real, accessible experience for everyone; because so many people seem not only ungrateful, but actually resentful! I’m feeling quite tired of defending my position at the moment, when I’m not quite sure why I have to. Explains why a lot of teachers don’t answer comments or e-mails in person.

Anyway, to alleviate the burden I’ve written a little FAQ for detractors so I don’t have to keep repeating myself.

Online communities

The Dharma Overground is a great idea: an online community for discussing the practicalities of enlightenment, such as what to practice and what to expect in terms of states, events and stages, run by people who have actually experienced enlightenment.

Sadly, anyone can go on there and call themselves an arahat (someone who has experienced enlightenment), and although there are some genuine arahats on there, there are a few who I believe are not, based on how their experience sounds like mine prior to enlightenment, and therefore nothing like my actual experience of enlightenment, or the Buddha’s, or Daniel Ingram’s, or Adyashanti’s, or Ramana Maharshi’s, or Lao Tzu’s, or any other respected teacher’s description of it.

These pseudo-arahats are into a movement called Actual Freedom and (I’ve chosen my words very carefully here) it is absolute dog shit. It is vile, anti-enlightenment, counter-initiatory guff. And it really saddens me to see other members of the Dharma Overground check it out and buy into it. I am absolutely baffled how intelligent people actually think psychosis is desirable (and I’m not just calling it psychosis because I don’t like it; the specific types of psychosis – such as ‘permanent’ depersonalisation – are listed on the site).

Now there is an Actual Freedom forum for people interested in the anti-enlightenment movement on the Dharma Overground, a site dedicated to honest and practical discussion of enlightenment. I’m at a loss for words.

Faith and Tradition

All of this leads very nicely to my new found appreciation for faith and tradition. To practice in order to engage with enlightenment requires faith in both the description of enlightenment offered by those who claim to have experienced it, and their ability to describe it accurately enough as to not be misleading.

There are so many individuals throughout history and alive today who have described a phenomenon called enlightenment in similar ways that mustering up the faith in enlightenment is not very difficult to do. If practice begins in earnest, that faith is vindicated to an extent by even a small degree of progress on the path. But no matter how great an experience might be, if it does not match the deep features of what has been described as enlightenment by this body of peers, then it is not what they are describing. Faith is required right up to the end of ignorance.

The value of an accurate description of enlightenment (that we can have faith in) is its ability to take away the focus from the attainments of the teacher. Either your experience matches the description, or it is not recognised as enlightenment by the body of peers that ascribe to that description. No ifs, buts or maybes. No questioning the teacher’s ability to accurately describe enlightenment, or even the teacher’s own attainments. This doesn’t mean we end up with teachers who have no experience of enlightenment; on the contrary, if the teacher’s experience doesn’t match the description, then they cannot be a teacher.

My primary task at the moment is to create a description of enlightenment that we can have faith in. That is not to say that such descriptions haven’t been provided before (I’m very much enjoying Dogen at the moment), but we need a clear, honest 21^st Century description for Westerners, by a Westerner.

I then want to start a tradition, where people can have faith in the teachings and the teachers, which can then eventually give way to direct, personal knowledge of enlightenment. I’ll be starting my first group soon in London, just as soon as I’ve created these damn banners…

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