You Can’t Script Enlightenment: Moving Beyond Magical Thinking
JG: You know, there’s a fair amount of controversy now as people try to sort out the difference between teachings based on reality and those that are the product of the religious imagination from earlier eras. I guess Ken Wilber might say we have moved from a magic/mythic level of development to the modernist, rational level of development, to the post-modern and integral levels. And so there’s this admixture of stuff—unrealistic stories that are the result of the magic/mythic orientation of the time periods in which they were created, as well as plenty of material that is based on actual observation.
So when it comes to the disagreements about enlightenment or arahatship[1], say, that seems to be part of it. But then another part of it is the mushroom culture and the way our projections proliferate in the darkness when we don’t talk about states and stages, and the fact that they actually exist and that some people are actually more advanced than others. So it is easy to hallucinate and imagine when you rarely or never hear a teacher say, “OK, I got first path on this date.” At least I have not heard this. You do not hear people talking about their experiences very often. Would you agree?
KF: That’s right. This is why some of us now are experimenting with this idea of coming out of the closet about enlightenment. We don’t know what the results will be, but we do see the problems with the other system. We see the problems with the “mushroom culture” of keeping everybody in the dark. The argument against disclosure has been, “Well, we don’t want to indoctrinate the yogis. We don’t want them to just start coming up and parroting these phenomena, these experiences, or pretending to be enlightened.” And, of course, there is something to that.
JG: Absolutely.
KF: But really in my experience it is the very unusual person—in fact I have never had it happen—who can convince me that they are enlightened when they are not, because they are going to make a false step. If they keep talking about it, they are going to start talking about something that just doesn’t fit.
JG: But it underscores the importance of keeping things balanced. We’re talking about spiritual friendship here, rather than guru-disciple stuff, but working with a teacher who has been there who can help you sort it out. And I guess as a student you also have to keep your ego in check and really be cognizant of the spiritual materialism and project mentality.
KF: Yes. It is hard to self-diagnose. But because this is a biological, human phenomenon—as I call it, a physio-energetic process—it happens. If people even get close to looking in the right direction, these things tend to unfold more or less efficiently depending on how they are practicing.
JG: And just to drill down to ground level here, you have good students who in recent months have attained to Paths—First Path, Second Path—right? So you are dealing with people on a regular basis who are moving along the Progress of Insight in a very real way.
KF: It happens all the time. Lots of the yogis I work with are First or Second Path, and we have several people who I think are Third Path. We even have several people who are regulars on the forum who I think are arahats . So this practice works. One of the things that I think is interesting is that once you publicly say, “I am enlightened. I am an arahat,” as audacious as that might sound to a lot of people, other people who have that same experience level will also come out of the closet and say, “Me too.”
It doesn’t happen often, at least not so far. I know just a handful of people who have personally approached me and said, “I am an arahat.” And of the handful of people who have made that claim, most have seemed credible to me. Every once in a while somebody will say something and I think they are mistaken, and I tell them so.
JG: So, in other words, shadow sides are unavoidable. You just have to be aware of them. There is the shadow side to saying, “Don’t discuss the states and stages of the path,” which is this mire of confusion that people get lost in.
KF: Right. That’s right, because shadow stuff is going to happen anyway. People are going to be confused at times; confusion is normal and inevitably. Some people are going to possibly, through no bad intention, get indoctrinated and start reporting things that have not really happened. But that is fine. That is not the problem. The real problem, in my opinion, is the lack of disclosure. When you do not have disclosure, you have this weird situation where nobody can even tell who the competent teachers are because you’ve got competent teachers who are saying, “Oh I’m not enlightened. I would never claim enlightenment.” They sometimes do this even if they are enlightened because they believe it is somehow virtuous to pretend they are not. This to me is just absolutely asinine.
And then, on the other hand, because of the mushroom culture and because of the darkness, we’ve got teachers who frankly have no idea what they’re talking about who are very popular and have all kinds of students, and they are just leading students down the primrose path because, after all, we don’t talk about these things. So I ask, what kind of legitimate pedagogy would allow for that?
JG: There are real consequences for that lack of disclosure just as there are real consequences, at times, for having it all be out in the open. It is going to make it easier for people to be unskillful about the Progress of Insight or about their attainments and so forth.
KF: Yes. There are consequences either way. For me, I always like to come down on the side of more disclosure rather than less because, if you think about it, when people withhold information, you have to ask why they’re doing it. Now, they may be doing it because that was how they were taught. And I think there really is a lot of that. Most of the dharma teachers that I know about, whether they are disclosing or not, have good intentions. So I do not want to say that people are involved in the mushroom culture because they are evil—that is far from the case.
And yet I think they are making a mistake because if you are withholding information, who benefits? You always have to ask this question, who benefits? Is it true that your students benefit from your lack of disclosure, or is there some subtle way in which you as the teacher benefit from your lack of disclosure?
For example, maybe you are benefiting from the mystique that can build up around a dharma teacher when nobody knows much about them. Well, that is very dangerous and I do not recommend it because there are a lot of reasons why this is a bad idea. Let’s look at disclosure from the point of view of disclosing your basic humanity, which is say, admitting your faults.
If you are a dharma teacher and you do not do that, people are going to buy into the magic-mythic ideas and they are going to start projecting upon you that you are a perfect being who smiles beatifically all the time and does not get angry, has no sex drive and could never violate any of the five precepts and on and on. You do not want that. At least not for very long. That is just a mess.
JG: Yes, right. Whereas if you disclose and you say, “Look, hey, this is what enlightenment is. It is not a comic-book scenario,” you have just cut out a lot of, hopefully, projection. And that can be very helpful to people.
KF: You want to keep knocking down the projections all along the way because it is a compassionate thing to do. It isn’t easy, though. It’s difficult because you’re going to get painted into a corner as a teacher. People are going to look at you lovingly and they are going to project—they’re going to see something that is not there. Unless you keep saying, “Yes I am enlightened and enlightenment does not mean I am ‘good,’ per se. I’m a human being just like you with all of the virtuous and not-virtuous qualities that you have. The difference is that I’m not as sticky, and that is all.”
JG: Now, this is where I have a question, because I totally agree with the idea that it is a wrong view that enlightenment is this comic book thing. But I also think, what is the point if this process does not result in a person who does less harm to himself and others and is, on the whole, a kinder and better person? Throughout history, we have saints. We read these accounts of Dipa Ma or other teachers, the love that people felt in their presence and so forth. So, the whole heart-centered quality of spirituality? Isn’t any of that meaningful?
KF: Well, when I talk like this, the way I’m talking with you now, my wife will say, “OK, but you are pretty nice.” [laughs]
Now it may happen—and I admit that it often does happen—that people become kinder and more compassionate when they are enlightened. But that is not the point. The point, if there is one—maybe we should just say that there is not a point… there’s just a process; there is no point any more than there is a point to growing up, becoming an adult, getting old and dying. That is just the way it unfolds.
But if we can let go of this idea that we can script our own enlightenment, we will be way ahead of the game. You cannot script this. It is going to be what it is, and if you insist “I’m only going to have the kind of enlightenment that turns me into a nice guy,” well, that is not up to you. That is none of your business, and that is what I want to tell people. Let enlightenment be what it is. All you can do is do your practice and watch it unfold. This is not about you anyway.
Because this is about finding out that you are a fiction. So wanting to control it from your grave is completely absurd.
JG: And what about the brahma-viharas and metta practice and all of that stuff?
KF: All of those have to be seen as ways to make society run better. It is very good to cultivate positive mind states because it helps society function when people are treating one another better. Those practices work. If you are really serious about becoming a nice person you should definitely do the brahama-viharas. They are only tangentially related to enlightenment. Because on the one hand we are talking about training the mind to think in a certain way with these practices like the brahma-viharas—otherwise known as the divine abodes, which are, by the way, metta (loving-kindness), karuna (compassion), mudita (sympathetic joy at the good fortune of another), and uppekha (equanimity). So cultivating those is a very beautiful thing to do. This is humanity at its best. I practice those. I encourage people to practice them, and that has nothing to do with enlightenment.
JG: You can do those practices, but if you are embedded in them…
KF: That’s right. Because enlightenment is when you’re not embedded in the experience and so does it happen that people who are not embedded in their experience often spontaneously manifest those qualities? Absolutely. It does happen that way. And yet if we think that we are going to script enlightenment and push it and boss it around based on our preconceptions, that is just more thinking. That is just more embedded thought.
JG: Is it Wilber who points out that there were enlightened samurai who were chopping people’s heads off, because failure to do so was unthinkably immoral in the culture of the time?
KF: That is actually very hard to deny, although it is unsettling to people.
JG: It does point to the lack of conditionality of that way of being I guess.
KF: It is easy for those of us who are sitting in a warm, comfortable living room in the United States or Europe to say that enlightenment means that you’re never going to do anything that violates our cultural code, but you can imagine situations in which you would do things that right now seem abhorrent. I remember reading Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl about his experiences in concentration camps in Germany during World War II. One of the things he said that really struck me, he talked about how day after day a truck would come to take prisoners to the fields to work. You knew that if you got on that truck to work you would survive the day. If you did not make it onto that truck you would be killed that day. He said that the prisoners would fight amongst themselves and kick each other off of the truck, scrambling for a place on that truck, so they could survive another day. These were prisoners fighting amongst themselves trying to get on the truck.
Frankl said, “We who have come back… we know: the best of us did not return.” That is incredibly powerful to me, for him to acknowledge that. Now, that is disclosure.
JG: So do we want to be a person who pretends not to have that side? Isn’t that worse? What is better, to have the courage and honesty to be willing to make that kind of a disclosure or to be somebody who pretends to be Spiritual Guy all the time?
KF: Exactly.
FOOTNOTES
1. For more on the revised view of arahatship, see: An Essay about Arahats and Letter to a Friend↑
Author Info
I love these conversations, please keep them coming!
Last night I watched the 1999 movie about Joan of Arc, "The Messenger." Joan is honest about her visions and voices of God and does not back down when challenged by the church. She of course gets burned alive at the stake at age 19. While we don't exactly kill people for claiming attainments nowadays, the media does like to roast our heroes in the fire of bad press!
I think there are times where modesty is appropriate in discussing one's spiritual "attainments." Perhaps teachers who make fun of the ideals of enlightenment are actually just making fun of the mythologized claims of arahats, the same claims that are challenged by those who claim to be arahats today.
It's a good point, Duff. There has to be some kind of middle way, no pun intended.
I think what Kenneth and Daniel are doing is deliberately tilted to one side, so to speak, in order to make what they believe is an important point. I could see a route where maybe private meditation interviews are the venue for much of this kind of discussion, at least in terms of students' attainments. I've seen firsthand how the assumptions of the closed culture can creep into meditation interviews themselves, so that neither student nor teacher talks about practice in an open way.
Interesting to think about where all these lines might be drawn so that their is neither a culture of secrecy nor one of chest-pounding or over-striving.
The guy who is free from magical thinking but lives his life magically; now that's enlightenment.
The truth is self-evident. No need to make claims. If there is the idea of a person with some attainment, then there is still a remnant, a shade or photographic likeness that can be admired, but by whom? Pure awareness is unaware of itself, the "personality" that thinks it "knows" is not present. It is not even registered as "illusion." All is spontaneous and free of association.
How many Sufis does it take to change a lightbulb? None. No such a thing as a "Sufi" exists.
I disagree with the above statement. I meditated for years in the Goenka Vipassana tradition. Teachers there avoid talking about attainments and stages. I was so curious about what was happening to me and why. I never got clear answers. I just got told to keep meditating. I suffered in the dukkha nanas for years because I had no idea what I was doing and what was happening to me. No idea that there was a map of the progress of insight, and that there is a light at the end of the tunnel; That light being 1st path and beyond. I only gathered the effort and energy to go for it too when I came across those few people who ARE talking about having gotten enlightened (developmental enlightenment) via Theravada 4th path model and saying how they did it. Without that disclosure, I would be floundering around still, not aware that if I worked in the correct way, I would also experience developmental enlightenment. Due to my experience, I completely disagree with the above post. The truth for me wasn't not self-evident, and that ignorance was stopping me from doing what needed to be done. I applaud people like Kenneth Folk and Daniel Ingram for "coming out the closet". There are so many people now getting path because of you. Kudos!
"If there is the idea of a person with some attainment, then there is still a remnant, a shade or photographic likeness that can be admired…"
I understand what John is pointing to, but I have to disagree also. I started my practice life with the teachings of Jiddu Krishnamurti, who would never say the word "I," only "the speaker." Over time, I became a non-dual fundamentalist, so to speak, because I denied all relativity and collapsed everything into the absolute in a way that was relentless.
Whenever any teacher or student said the word "I" in relation to practice, some part of me twinged and felt superior. "Don't these people get it?" What I failed to understand is that each individual body-mind has its own degree of confusion or clarity, regardless of the absolute nature of reality. While it is absolutely true that there are "no enlightened egos" and that there is "nothing to do and nowhere to go" from a certain perspective, what Kenneth and Daniel have helped me see is that developmental enlightenment does occur within the individual body-mind as a physio-energetic process. There are states and stages along the way. As Ken Wilber would point out, the undifferentiated consciousness of an infant is not the same as that of a fully enlightened Buddha who has spent a lifetime cultivating yogic attainment.
In thinking about this, even Krishnamurti wrote for years about the process that was unfolding within himself, and he described that process, as well as the states and stages associated with it, in great detail in works like "Krishnamurti's Journal." He just didn't use the word "I."
You can't pluck a person off the street and say, "This random person is equally enlightened as Jiddu Krishnamurti, because we're all Buddhas."
There is a process. Greater openness about that process allows those who are more advanced to offer advice to those who are stuck or are progressing more slowly. And as Nikolai points out, there are "rolling up of the mat" stages in that process that can very difficult and destabilizing. Those who don't know about these stages will encounter them nonetheless, and could very well end up making a mess of their relationships, work lives, etc., as Daniel describes from experience in MCTB.
I have to say that I am not speaking from a particular perspective of Insight meditation at all, so the context here is different, but the end result is the same. It may be beneficial from a stages point of view to feel you know where the teacher is coming from, but I doubt it. There is no way for one person to know without having had the experience of knowing. The teacher knows, and recognizes the stages, and of course there is infinite value in this, in the relationship overall. There can only be trust in the idea of the teacher's attainment, but not an understanding of it (not as peers). In the end, there is indeed the infant consciousness to reckon with, when one gets to the basis for the I Am, where it all began, this first imprint of "self," which then dissolves. Does a jnani know another jnani? What do you mean by "know?" This is what is self-evident.
Hi John,
I disagreed about the point of there not having to make any claims. If no-one made any claim to enlightenment (of course there is no "I" that gets enlightened but we are speaking conventionally here) many of us would be lost in the dark, or progress would be very, very slow. What if Buddha hadn't said anything about what he achieved?
Of course one never knows for sure what stage or attainment another has, but regardless, being showed where I was going wrong by someone who claimed to have done it, was what I was missing in my practice. And I paid attention because they claimed such a thing. Of course I had no way to know for sure but because of their guidance I was able to verify what they were saying and claiming. I probably wouldn't have followed their advice if they hadn't claimed anything as I was sick of not knowing what I was going for and whetehr there was anyone around these days who had done it. There are dangers for sure. But I prefer the full disclosure to guessing whether what I am doing in my practice is going to lead anywhere. Kenneth Folk and Daniel Ingram being the "open books" that they are helped me get my bearings and navigate difficult territory.
Nikolai, its great that you have found teachers like Kenneth and Daniel. Lots of people make lots of claims, Kenneth points this out in the interview. My point is, how can one tell if another has achieved what he says he has achieved? In the case of Kenneth and Daniel, they recognize the signposts along the way that everyone encounters, and are open to explain them. But what if one runs across another type of teacher who has no attainment but claims to, who sets you up with progressive "stages" that are in effect self-fulfilling prophecies based on the power of suggestion? Could you tell the difference? Does this type of teacher's "full disclosure" do anything but deceive? How is a student in a position to know which to follow?
You make a very good point, John– one that reflects the subtlety and complexity of life. I understand the hopefulness and enthusiasm of those who are relieved to find someone, anyone, who will talk straightforwardly about enlightenment; I have shared that view. And I have also experienced the disillusionment that results from discovering that some claimants are– from my point of view– sometimes ignorantly, and sometimes deliberately, misrepresenting themselves. The deliberate frauds misrepresent themselves [and less often, their students, should there be something to be gained by it] for the crassest of motives. The ignorant are just the blind leading the blind. The idea that anyone else can enlighten us is a fantasy that dies hard.
I think the paradox of enlightenment is that 'it takes one to know one.' But paradox is one of those things that requires a lot of patience to put up with! Patience doesn't seem to be the strong suit of the culture at large.
In regard to JoelG's reference above: "As Ken Wilber would point out, the undifferentiated consciousness of an infant is not the same as that of a fully enlightened Buddha who has spent a lifetime cultivating yogic attainment." And my following statement: "In the end, there is indeed the infant consciousness to reckon with, when one gets to the basis for the I Am, where it all began, this first imprint of "self," which then dissolves." Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj refutes Ken Wilbur by stating "The jnani's state is like the child's state, when the child was not knowing itself." (Prior to Consciousness) And elsewhere he talks at length about balkrishna, the example of the infant Krishna's as representative of this state. One could say the importance of the story of the infant Christ is also in line with the "not knowing" aspect of realization.
@John: "Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj refutes Ken Wilbur by stating "The jnani's state is like the child's state, when the child was not knowing itself." (Prior to Consciousness)"
I don't know that I would call that a refutation so much as a difference in opinion. And that difference of opinion is more than likely due to Nisargadatta's lack of understanding with regard to the major advances in "Western" psychology, which Wilber has done a good job of staying up on. Personally, I'm with KW on this one. Though, I can't deny the brilliance of Nisargatta's teaching from the perspective of the awakened adult.
I think John misunderstood my point, which I didnt articulate very well.
I was trying to assert that a child's level of development is not the same as that of an adult. (This is Ken Wilber's famous "pre-trans falacy".)
Ultimately, awareness is awareness, whether embodied in a non-yogi, yogi, infant, or adult. However, when the relative wakes up to the absolute, and recalls how it did so, this can be taught. There are techniques and non-techniques, states and stages. This is what someone like Kenneth Folk, or for that matter Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj, tries to do.
The developed yogi–read: the adult–can do something that an infant cannot, regardless of the ultimate ground of being or whatever word you want to use.
We don't quote random children when we talk about this stuff. We quote the likes of Sri Nisargadatta or Dogen Zenji. Somehow, it's easy to forget this and to think that it's not necessary or even advisable to have a teacher since there's nothing to do and nowhere to go, and we're all already enlightened anyway.
This is just my opinion. I certainly could be wrong. In the end, I'll have to test the hypothesis and find out for myself.
I just listened to a dharma talk by Ajahn Sumhedo in which he gently ridiculed the notion of attainments –"I wouldn't trust anyone going around saying he was a stream-enterer, much less an arahant." When I see charts of enlightenment and hear phrases like "getting path", it smells and tastes like another elaboration of samsara designed primarily to reinforce our conventional needs for status and the approval of ourselves and others. I recognize a real teacher by their compassion, and by the fact that when I contemplate and practice their teachings my understanding grows. I hear wisdom in Dogen's phrase, "Don't think you'll necessarily know when you're enlightened," and in the teaching of so many in the Dao, Chan and Zen traditions that there is nothing to attain. I'm just looking for a way to live my life in this world without suffering so much and causing others to suffer — I'm not interested in ecstatic states or spiritual merit badges.
Hi Mark.
I sincerely do hope this approach works for you, and that you awaken in this life and find true happiness.
My basic take these days is that resting the mind without investigation of experience–including exploration of the states and stages of the path–is a formula for stagnation. And that, likewise, investigation of experience without due emphasis on resting the mind in the perfection of this moment–on surrender–can become an endless loop. I just don't see how you can explore and investigate the states and stages of the path without actually talking about them openly. What I like about Kenneth Folk's teaching is that it includes and balances both of the aforementioned approaches. I'd really disagree that the focus of his teaching is somehow on merit badges or ecstatic states. There's a lot more to it than that, I'd say.
If I remember right the book Ken Wilber was referencing when he was talking about the Enlightened Samuri was Zen at War. I have not read it but just thought I would point this out for anyone who was curious. Hey Mark. I hope you find something that works for you. It is important to understand that that Venerable has been a monk for years and years and it is his monastic culture not to talk about these things. I would argue that his culture rather than his understanding or attainment dictated that statement. Although I would like to qualify that by saying I do believe he is very attained. He could definatly be an arahat although he would be the last to admit it…
Interesting how I read the comments. From these comments I am seeing, this is right, this is wrong. My way works, yours doesn't.
Is it irony that its about a enlightenment. If I am right and you are wrong, have I failed to become enlightened to the most basic of precepts? I did this to become enlightened, you didn't therefor you are not enlightened. If people disclose their answers do we attain enlightenment for ourselves or are we not just a member of another religion and its doctrines?
I am a member of a group, we seek to improve our lives, we have basic steps that are suggested. SUGGESTED as these steps may not work for everyone (ie assess your current state). Another group has sat down and wrote a manual on how to do each step, the correct way (you MUST do this to succeed). People following this path seem to have more difficulty than those that seek their own path and answers.
My most frustrating moments are working with others who want me to give them detailed instruction.