Daniel Ingram - Mastering the Core Teachings of Buddha - An Unusually Hardcore Dharma Book

They are inescapable. They cycle endlessly in one’s waking hours and even when dreaming. They subtly or overtly color one’s mood, energy level and perception of the world. As soon as a Fruition is attained, the cycle starts again and proceeds, though the timing and obviousness of this fact may be somewhat variable depending on how much one is practicing, what is going on in one’s life and how good one is at noticing the qualities of these stages. Even when doing concentration practices, these cycles are in the background somewhere. It is possible to ignore them to a large degree for a while when in deep samatha jhanas, though it takes work to do so.

I remember lying down to take a nap after lunch when on retreat in India a few days after my first Fruition. Before I knew it, meditation was occurring. The cycles were showing themselves in order without any 249

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effort or even invitation. They had their individual qualities much as I have explained above, though they move fairly quickly from one to the other, and about 45 minutes later Fruition occurred. Soon thereafter, it was obvious that the cycle had started again.

Do you cycle naturally through the cycles of insight from stage four to eleven and then attain Fruition? If you just sat down on a cushion and did nothing special, would you move through these stages as easily as falling down a hill? Do Fruitions arise after such cycles in a way that fairly consistently leaves you with the staggering impression that, “that was it!”? If not, I would avoid harboring any notions that you are enlightened, “have been enlightened some time in the past,” etc., as you are almost certainly in error. Such notions are not helpful most of the time anyway, and tend to be bound up in a sense of solidity and imagined continuity of self that is simply unrealistic.

I have a friend who erroneously thinks he is enlightened and once said, “Oh, yes, I went through those stages once many years ago, but now I am beyond them.” Toast! Those who are enlightened go through these stages hundreds if not thousands of times each year. There is absolutely no getting around them barring deep sleep, severe brain damage, strong sedation or death.

However, it is fair to mention that some enlightened people simply don’t think about things in this way, have never noticed that they cycled, never picked up on the patterns, were never exposed to the maps, don’t have particularly strong concentration, don’t realize how they got there, are not particularly intellectual or, if they are, never applied their intellect to these aspects of where theory meets practice, never really paid attention to the way things unfold, and couldn’t care less. Thus, if someone is enlightened, I brazenly assert they cycle like this, but that doesn’t mean they realize they do, and if their practice unfolded gently or slowly or without very intense concentration and a map-oriented focus, they may have no idea about most of the things I am discussing here and yet they apply to them anyway. I poured massive amounts of energy into my practice, developed very strong concentration, and care about the maps obsessively, but that doesn’t mean that other beings who are enlightened did or do.

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Back to describing the cycles. As Review sets in, it can seem that one can control these cycles and stages. It may seem after we have mastered a path somewhat that we can call insight stages up in order and stay in them as long as we wish or even call them up out of order. From one point of view, enlightened beings can master and manipulate the stages of insight, though such practices can take on much more of a samatha feel than an insight feel. From another point of view, perhaps a more thoroughly insight-oriented point of view, even such a notion is erroneous. Stages, cycles, and the empty intentions to manipulate them occur in a causal fashion, and if there is a sense that there is an independent self that is controlling them, then there is obviously more work to do. Now, there’s a high standard, and worthy standard, indeed!

These cycles, as with everything else, simply belong to the nature of things.

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29.BEYOND FIRST PATH (“WHAT NEXT?”)

Obviously, it can be easy for a meditator to think that they have completed a progress of insight and gotten stream entry when in fact they haven’t. It is also possible for a meditator to have actually completed a progress of insight and yet think otherwise, but this is much less common. Sometimes a student will be correct in thinking that they have, but their teachers will remain unconvinced. Sometimes a teacher may think that the student has and yet be wrong. Regardless, just keep practicing and see what happens. This is the most fundamental principle for all of these stages. A particularly useful and traditional guideline is to wait a year and a day before completely making up your mind. This is slippery stuff sometimes, and many states and stages can easily fool a student or teacher into thinking that they are something they are not.

When a meditator successfully completes a progress of insight, they have permanently debunked certain illusions to some degree, but many remain. These tend to include a new fascination with the understanding that has arisen from that path. However, if one’s “realization” doesn’t stand to the test of time, or if there is not some sort of fundamental and unalterable reduction in suffering, write it off and keep going. Even if one does complete a progress of insight, is easy to imagine that more has been debunked than actually has, so continue to practice training in morality throughout your life as before to avoid being bitten by those unskillful potentials that remain but are hidden. Strangely, the temptations to screw up can become more subtle and seductive as practice deepens. These tend to be at their worst around the next Arising and Passing Away or during the next Re-observation.

An extended series of progresses of insight tend to proceed as follows. They may be called “Paths” in the Theravada and “Bhumis” in the Tibetan, though there are some problems that arise in trying to resolve the inconsistencies in these two models that will be touched on a bit later. Thus, a more general treatment follows, and the descriptions of the stages here are not taken directly from any particular tradition. From one point of view, all of this is not necessary information, as continued practice just as before will continue to move things along quite naturally.

On the other hand, if one has expectations about what might come next

Beyond First Path (“What Next?”)

that are not in accord with reality or interfere with practice, then this information might be helpful.

The meditator masters this stage of awakening by continued practice as before. They can quickly learn to rise through all of the stages, starting from the Arising and Passing Away, through the Dark Night, up to Equanimity and Fruition in a single sitting or even during some of the activities of daily life. Merely sitting down on a cushion, or being awake for that matter, will involve naturally moving through these cycles, thought the speed and clarity of these can vary widely depending on the practitioner and circumstances. They may even find it interesting to purposefully hang out in some of the stages of the Dark Night just to learn more about them and from them, as they have some very

important lessons to teach and are very interesting territory. However, they may also come to realize that this is really just a new beginning in some ways, sort of like graduating from high school but then becoming a lowly freshman in college.

The period after completing a progress of insight and after gaining some strong sense of mastery of its stages is also a great time to work on one’s concentration practice abilities. The reason for waiting is that concentration practices and insight practices tend to have a certain inertia to them. If you have recently been trying to get into really stable samatha states, this can make it harder to see things flicker for a while. If you have recently been training hard to see things flicker, it can be hard to get into really stable samatha jhanas. Thus, what you don’t want to do is to gunk up the natural mastery phase of your practice until you are comfortable enough with these stages to get stuck in one and not have it be a big deal. This usually takes at least a few weeks, but this is a very crude guideline, and everyone is different regarding issues of timing.

Judge for yourself how well you handle stages such as Re-observation and decide if you would be alright if you got stuck in it for a few hours.

The time after gaining some mastery of these stages is also a great time to work on one’s stuff. Actually, doing concentration practices and working on one’s stuff go very well together, as concentration states tend to cause our stuff to come bubbling to the surface where we can work with it. The time during a mastery phase is also a great time to make 253

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sure that one’s daily life is functioning well, particularly if one made a mess of it while trying to get enlightened or more enlightened.

Mastery of these stages tends to peak at some point, and the sense can arise that one has really “got it.” Fruitions tend to occur fairly quickly, clearly and easily. Given time and practice, they may begin to become somewhat bored with their current level of attainment and with their ability to attain these stages and Fruition. Their practice can begin to seem sloppy, and the quiet bliss wave after Fruition can diminish somewhat unless they do not attain it for some long period of time (which would probably require resolutions to that effect).

The understanding that there is more suffering to uproot grows.

They begin to see more levels of reality that are clearly not well understood or illuminated by their current understanding, hints of which probably showed themselves very soon after their attainment of that path. Subtle thoughts and mental patterns may be noticed at the edge of one’s perceptual threshold. Attention begins to incline towards the next level of reality that must be understood and away from familiar territory. More fresh insights begin to show up.

They begin to investigate reality with more effort and clarity as before and begin a new progress of insight from the beginning, i.e.

access concentration and then Mind and Body and the rest. This might play out as follows: fairly soon after the sense of strong mastery, one will simply be meditating along, perhaps a Fruition will occur, and then suddenly the mind drops into this new state rather than a new review cycle beginning again. It is stable, interesting, and somewhat jhana-like.

It is sort of like re-inhabiting one’s life or reconnecting with the sense of the observer. It is also likely the next Mind and Body. This could also happen when one was just going about one’s day.

The postural obsession, odd movements, strange tensions and

pains, emotional volatility, vibratory stuff that seems new, a fresh and clearer sense of what dualistic perspectives remain, and all of the other early progress of insight stuff may arise in its time naturally and perhaps sooner than one might wish. The phrase “leading onward” is often used to describe the wisdom that arises from dharma practice. Strangely, it is a phrase and a fact that I have cursed just as often as blessed, and entering new insight territory at inopportune times or before one feels 254

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ready can reveal why. Insight cycles can sometimes be very traumatic, and it is often advisable to take a break to recover one’s sense of humor and appreciation of life before plunging on. However, at this point the dharma waits for no one and may plunge on regardless of your wishes.