Numinous Nonsense

I find that somehow, by shifting the focus of attention, I become the very thing I look at and experience the kind of consciousness it has; I become the inner witness of the thing. I call this capacity of entering other focal points of consciousness – love. – Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

I heard that quote from Nisargadatta, the famous advaita sage, on a recent month-long retreat. I found it significant, because at the time I was working with the enquiry question, “What is Love?” and had started to come to the same realization. So, when I heard the very simple description of love that Nisargadatta gave, of the capacity to place one’s consciousness on something, I thought to myself, “Exactly!”

When I first started working with the question, “What is Love?” my initial experience was of feeling the connection between all things, almost like seeing the subtle, but pervasive, effect that each atom had on each other atom in the universe. But then, the answer began to change, and for some time, each time I asked the question, “What is Love?” almost immediately a huge amount of fear, anxiety, etc. would arise. At first I thought that I must be doing something wrong, but as I continued to ask the question the same exact thing kept happening. Before I asked, everything would be even, clear, etc. and then BAM all sorts of intense and difficult emotions would arise. I began to get interested in this fact, and decided that it’s arising couldn’t be an accident, but rather was exactly what should be arising. And so I shifted to just being with, and seeing clearly, all of it as it arose. Much as I would do with vipassana practice, I gently explored and relaxed into the experience. Eventually, as all experiences do, it faded, and I had the sudden and shocking realization that this was an answer to the question, “What is Love?” Love is the capacity to be present with something. When I shared that with my teacher, Trudy Goodman, she acknowledged that yes, that is what is meant by Love. And she also mentioned that it kind of trips people out to see that, because it really doesn’t carry with it all the charged emotionality that people assume it should.

Reflecting on this a little later, it occurred to me that any practice that allows one to be with experience more fully is itself a practice of Love. All of the vipassana practice that I’ve done, seeing clearly the nature of phenomenon and the mind-body-self process, was strengthening Love. And now I really don’t see a difference between the practices that more emphasize surrender and love and those that emphasize awareness and attention. For me, they converge in the simple act of “shifting the focus of attention” to include whatever it is. And what happens when we are able to do that for the whole of Reality, just as it is? For me, that’s when things start to get interesting!

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I’ve noticed lately that I really haven’t had much to write about it. Part of it I think is because I’ve been quite busy with other projects, but I think the bigger reason is that many of my fundamental assumptions about the way reality works have come into question. I’ve found that it’s kind of difficult to write things when I’m beginning to question the very way that I had been approaching almost everything. With that in mind I figured I’d share a little bit of what that process has been like.

I couple months ago I began engaging in Robert Kegan’s¹ Immunity to Change process, which is designed to unearth hidden “core assumptions” related to one’s current “order of consciousness” (a fancy way of saying “development”). Once these core assumptions are surfaced one begins a process of testing these assumptions, first with small tests and then with larger ones. The tests are meant to reveal data about whether or not those assumptions are true. And if they aren’t, then they allow one to loosen their grip on said assumptions.

In my own case, I unearthed several very interested assumptions. Some of them I was already starting to become aware of, and so wasn’t that surprised by—though I will say that seeing them in writing for the first time did kind of surprise me. But there was one in particular that really knocked me over. And it was that, “I should be able to resolve all paradoxes and contradictions that I encounter.”

For at least a few years now, I’ve had it as one of my main aims to take in as much information as possible. The information itself comes not only from reading or taking in other media, but also from direct experience: from interesting discussions, and from all sorts of practices (psychological, spiritual, and otherwise). As a result I’ve “learned” more and more and have really built up quite a robust model about the way things are. I always considered that this model was dynamically evolving, and that by running into paradoxes and contradictions I’d be able to learn from them and integrate (or perhaps a better word would be “assimilate”) them into this constantly growing model. When I tell many of my closest friends this (hey guys!) they say, “Oh, yeah that makes perfect sense buddy.”

Then I tell them that, as a result of unearthing this assumption, I’m now starting to question this entire approach. Should I really be able to resolve (or integrate) all of these disparate pieces of information? Often their interest is piqued, and I think like me, they begin to question (perhaps for the first time) this approach to reality. I haven’t completely finished with this process, and I still have much difficult work to do, to see where it leads. But for the first time, I’ve started to see that resolving paradox and creating an ever-evolving model of reality might not be the best (or at least only reasonable) approach to reality.

I don’t know is, but I am committed to following this thread of inquiry and to do my best to see where Kegan’s method takes me. I have a feeling it’s going somewhere important, if only because I see some of my deepest held assumptions crumbling down around me. It isn’t pleasant, and it isn’t winning me any friends at the moment, but what else can I do?

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1. For those of you who don’t know about Robert Kegan, he is a developmental psychologist at Harvard university who has been studying adult development for over two decades. His last book, In Over Our Heads: The Mental Demands of Modern Life is a great introduction to his developmental theory. [↩]

I had the great fortune, earlier this month, of spending a long weekend in Alabama visiting with one of my favorite dharma teachers, Daniel Ingram. He invited several dharma buddies to come out and have a weekend of hanging, talking, practicing, and hiking around the woods of northern Alabama. I made some new friends, and met some old friends there. My old teacher Kenneth Folk was there–Kenneth offered some pivotal suggestions in my earlier practice days. I also met an old online buddy, Hokai Sobol, for the first time in person.

This gathering was focused almost exclusively on discussing, in a transparent fashion, all sorts of dharma-related stuff. The amount of heavy hitting, high level dharma that was touched on was astounding. It became clear to me that this wasn’t just a group of people hanging out, with common interests, but that this was a whole new way of engaging the dharma. In short, I think it could be part of a larger movement toward a more empowering and transparent way of engaging with contemplative practice. I think that still remains to be seen, but I definitely saw the potential there.

Fortunately, being the geek that I am, I helped to record one of our marathon conversations. You can find them here. In this discussion five of us explored the distinction between “Doing it” and “Getting it Done.” Doing it is what most people are doing, they are doing something in their practice, but it isn’t always something which is leading to actual awakening and realization. In many cases what they’re doing isn’t actually all that helpful. Getting it done refers to actually gaining traction on the spiritual path, making real and measurable progress, and in short getting enlightened. It’s what the Buddhist path is designed for. Anyway, we discussed why some people are “doing it” but not “getting it done” and we went into a whole lot of detailed discussion around what getting it done means, and what it means for us personally. I ended up sharing a lot of personal details about my current edge in practice, and received a lot of helpful advice in the process.

Just be warned, these aren’t the kind of discussions you are going to hear in public dharma scenes (not any that I know of). They contain some definitely controversial points of view. But, if you like hard-hitting, transparent dharma you should take a listen and let me know what you think.

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The American philosopher and semiotician (one who studies “signs”) Charles Sanders Peirce proposed a helpful model for understanding the way that signs operate. In this case, we’re looking at the signs related to human communication, and more specifically the language related to the communication and interpretation of “enlightenment.” Peirce used a triadic model to explain signs, where a sign is the collection of a representamen (the form which the sign takes, in this case the spoken or written word), an interpretent (the sense made of the sign), and an object (that to which the sign points-the thing itself). Another term for representamen and interpretant are the signifier and signified. The signifier, again, is the the words or symbols which point to something and the signified is the concept which we associate with the signifier. The object continues to be that which, as a whole is being pointed toward.

When considering the semiotics of enlightenment, we can see that the word enlightenment is the signifier and the conceptual understanding that we have of what enlightenment is, is the signfied. The object then is enlightenment itself (i.e. the direct 1st person understanding of “it”). One of the famous sayings in the Zen tradition, makes some use of this distinction, when pointing out that the finger that points to the moon is not the moon. In this analogy that the moon is itself enlightenment and that the finger represents the signifier and signified combined. The finger is both the word “enlightenment” and all the possible notions one may have about it. The assumption here is that by looking beyond all relative notions of enlightenment we can more quickly experience it for ourselves. Zen is rife with this understanding of enlightenment.

Taking this conception of signs a bit further, I’d like to point out and try to some degree to remedy a confusion which appears obvious in the Western Buddhist tradition. That has to do with the confusion surrounding the term enlightenment, as well as other terms that “point to” the goals of Buddhist practice (nirvana, arhant, BuddhaNature, emptiness, luminosity, satori, etc.). The confusion has to do with the observation that people often have very different, and sometimes directly competing, notions of what is being signified by these terms, not to mention the variety of signifiers which seem to be pointing in similar directions.

Daniel Ingram has done an excellent, albeit cursory, exploration of some of the different notions or models that people have when they think about or use these terms. Check out the section of his book, The Models of Enlightenment, for more information. These ideals and notions often come from divergent sources, including one’s tradition, one’s teachers, books (both ancient and contemporary), other practitioners, other religious traditions, etc. In a very real sense we often map our hidden assumptions (many of which are culturally generated) onto these terms and go around assuming that these what is now signified by the term enlightenment is universally understood. In short we confuse the signified with the object of enlightenment and we take our idea of what enlightenment is, to be enlightenment itself. We often don’t realize that there are many possible signifiers (or interpretents) that people will have in regards to enlightenment.

The first thing to do then, is to recognize that this is the case. Then, we can examine our concepts of enlightenment (and perhaps others) and see which actually hold up to reality-testing, and more pragmatically which actually lead to the goal. Of course, the question arises here, what goal? As soon as we ask this question, and start exploring, then we’ll see that there actually be several different possible goals. Traditionally the Buddhist tradition has used the distinction of the 3 trainings–ethics, concentration, & wisdom–to define three different areas that we can train in. Each of these lead to different goals, and there are in fact different goals within each of these areas (ex. in concentration practice we may attain an initial level of concentration that helps us stay with changing objects of attention, or we may attain a deeper degree of concentration absorption that has very different qualities.)

So the next thing we can do is create a clear language of signifiers, that can accurately describe subtle differences in experience. Being clear about what we mean, when we say what we say, and having a rigorous contemplative language can be much more helpful then running around with only a few, vaguely defined terms. I would argue that much of the confusion, frustration, and argument surrounding the term “enlightenment” has to do with the lack of clarity regarding the semiotics involved. Let’s get clear about what means what, when, and to whom. And let’s do it in the service of awakening to the many dimensions of freedom that have been pointed to in the Buddhist tradition!

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Mastering the Core Teachings of the Buddha, by a fellow named Daniel M. Ingram. And his core message was that enlightenment was possible, that mastery of concentration states are possible, and that if one puts enough dedication and focus into practicing well they will discover these things for themselves soon enough. His “cook book approach,” as he calls it, was truly revolutionary for me at the time. All of the material I’d seen on enlightenment up till that point seemed either to claim that it was possible but not give much information on what “it” was, or would describe enlightenment in highly mythological terms and hint, however subtly, at it not being something that was attainable here and now. On a deep, and perhaps intuitive level, I knew that enlightenment was possible, I knew it was what I wanted more than anything (though I didn’t know why), and here I finally had someone telling me that it was attainable, showing me exactly how to get there from here, and showing me many of the possible achievements and stumbling blocks along the way!

By following the “recipes” in this book, spending a lot of time practicing in my daily life and in intensive retreat environments, I made real progress and it was both measurable and reproducible. I saw other dedicated practitioners going through similar phases that I had, including a very difficult phase, called “the dark night.” Through good guidance, both from Daniel Ingram and other, and through being committed to following through no matter what, I was eventually able to navigate through this territory and have since come to realize much of what he writes about in his book. And in all honesty, I think there’s no better endorsement of his work then that.

Fortunately, his work has not remained relegated to the world of eBooks and computer screens, as Aeon Books decided it would be a good idea to publish it and as of this month it’s available in hard copy. You can buy the book on Amazon, where it is significantly cheaper, or go directly to Aeon’s website and buy it there. If you are interested in making significant progress in your meditation practice, want unparalleled maps of both insight and concentration practices, and are slightly fed up with those books and teachers who shy away from hard-core mastery or open and transparent discussion regarding enlightenment, then I’m willing to bet this is the book for you.

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Digital Serfs and Cyborg Buddhas from Jeriaska on Vimeo.

Check out this great talk with Professor James Hughes and Professor Mike LaTorra. Both James and Mike have been guests on Buddhist Geeks, and they are also both Transhumanists. Their talk is an interesting mixture of Buddhist and Transhumanist idea, particularly aimed at exploring the future of our economic system and the potential results of having “structured unemployment,” particularly as it relates to self-actualization and spiritual growth. This talk was given at the recent Convergence08 conference.

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