Indigo Buddhism?

In Integral Spirituality (IS) Ken talks about evolutionary enlightenment. He defines enlightenment as the highest level and state at a given historical period. When the originators of the perennial tradition formulated its paradigm it was pre-modern, or possibly mythical-rational. But it had yet to achieve modernity and certain not postmodernity. And it would appear that the higher stages of cognitive development only arrived on the scene in the latter periods. Yes, rationality “started” a long time ago, in India, Greece etc. But it wasn’t the more developed egoic-rationality of today.

Ken takes account of this is IS with the Wilber-Combs lattice. The states are no longer stacked on top of the stages as future stages awaiting stable development. And states are interpreted by the stage that apprehends them, as states can be experienced at any stage. Even full, stable non-dual realization can be experienced by a meditation “master,” yet said master can very well be, and often is, coming from an ethnocentric level.

There are, however, stages above those on the W-C lattice that sound similar to the states, hence Ken’s prior association of them with stable, higher stages. But it seems that those stages lie in our collective future, not past. So I’m wondering, given the following quotes from IS, if the originators of meditative states were somehow in their micro-communities really also advanced to the turquoise or indigo level as well? It’s difficult to know from the quotes because Ken first says “systemic Global View” is a recent emergent, unless 2000 years ago is “recent.” But later he says that such writings on states indeed arose in tuquoise or indigo cognition?

So assuming that Nagarjuna and Padmasambhava and even the current Dalai Lama are not indigo level, then we must take their interpretations of their state experiences as the interpretations of a lower level. And given that indigo level is just now forming in our kosmic groove, how does it interpret such as nonduality? It would seem vision-logical to assume that interpretation would not just be regurgitation of the traditional way, no? And those who interpret such states in that same traditional way must surely not be indigo, no? Unless the traditional interpretations really did time-warp to the future in indigo? Help me out here please.

Note the following exerpted quotes are from the draft, not the book. Having perused the book I can tell you that much of the draft survives verbatim in the book, just at different page numbers. From IS draft:

A second problem quickly compounded that one. If “enlightenment” (or any sort of unio mystica) really meant going through all of those 8 stages, then how could somebody 2000 years ago be enlightened, since some of the stages, like systemic GlobalView, are recent emergents? (107)

It allowed us to see how individuals at even some of the lower stages of development—such as magic or mythic—could still have profound religious, spiritual, and meditative state experiences. Thus, gross/psychic, subtle, causal, and nondual were no longer stages stacked on top of the Western conventional stages, but were states (including altered states and peak experiences) that can and did occur alongside any of those stages. (110)

(What was so doubly confusing to us is the fact that, as indicated on fig. 6, there are also 3 or 4 higher structures beyond the centaur, and they have similar-sounding characteristics as these 3 or 4 higher states, which made it almost impossible to spot the differences. (110)

Anybody familiar with the monastic traditions, East and West, from Zen to Benedictine, will recognize those souls who might be quite spiritually advanced in Underhill’s sense (very advanced in contemplative illumination and unification) and yet might still have a very conformist and conventional mentality—sometimes shockingly xenophobic and ethnocentric—and this goes, unfortunately, for many Tibetan and Japanese meditation masters. Although they are very advanced in meditative states training, their structures are amber-to-orange, and thus their available interpretive repertoire is loaded by the Lower-Left quadrant with very ethnocentric and parochial ideas that pass for timeless Buddhadharma. (E.g., according to his secretary, the Dalai Lama believes homosexuality is a sin, anal sex is a sin, oral sex is bad karma, etc.—when everybody knows that oral sex is not bad karma, only bad oral sex is bad karma…. But these sadly are typical mythic-amber beliefs.) (117-18)

In the meantime, Asian meditation teachers, with a LL-quadrant that is heavily amber, or mythic-membership, and hence “non-egoic” in the sense of PREinvidualistic, and therefore used to having students simply obey them unhesitatingly and in a conformist-stage fashion, don’t quite know what to do with individualistic-stage Westerners, whose LL-quadrant is loaded orange-to-green. (118)

…many of the great contemplative texts, sutras, and tantras were written in the cognitive line from at least the turquoise and often indigo or violet levels. (127)

Re: Indigo Buddhism?

Hello Edward,

I think that to acknowledge that a line, or set of lines, had reached a stage, and expressed such, isn't the same as calling the center of gravity of the person.
 
I don't know where the kinesthetic lines of the monks who originally developed martial arts may have been, but Ken placing Micheal Jordan at indigo does not surprise me.

From my Zen lineage, (a school of mind-to-mind transmition, of no reliance on words and letters, etc. ), two turns of phrase come to mind. 1. “That the Buddhadharma takes the shape of the Vessel that contains it.” And 2.” That for the accomplishment of the student to equal  that of the teacher deminishes the teachings by half. In order for transmition to be complete, the student must surpass the teacher.”

I don't know enough to subscribe to an absolute, gross linear sequentiality to kosmic unfolding.

The more interesting question to me is, “Why do you ask?”

prajna paramita,

jikishin

Re: Indigo Buddhism?

Here’s what Chris Dierkes responded in the same inquiry at Open Integral (www.openintegral.net)

Thanks for the post.

On one level I think eventually all rational mental level systems reach their carrying capacity and I think this conundrum you articulated points to one for Wilber’s integral.

On the other hand, there are a couple of lines of possible harmony.

In the last line Wilber writes that many of the ancient great contemplative texts in the cognitive line come from turquoise, indigo, etc.

That would seem to imply the texts are not necessarily coming from such a level in other lines, particularly say the worldviews or values.

If we indeed imagine any mystic charting ahead in some very small way into the higher levels, it would make sense (I think) to assume they only needed to cover the basics of any level to keep moving.

And as these higher levels would have been so infinitesimally formed, I suppose there would be very little in the way of actual content to have to come to terms with.

The cognitive line is a measure of how many perspectives one can take. In that way you can see an ancient text having room for 4th or 5th perspective but without all the content to those stages from later development. Like with green, say the intersubjective.

Just like people today might be moving into indigo-violet and yet those are so lightly engaged that in the future when they are more prominent people at those actual levels will look back on our contemporary “forerunners” and wonder how much sense it would make to say they were evolved to that stage.

What is the actual content of say violet at this juncture?

I myself am very agnostic (even skeptical) of meditation through states (state-stages) moving people vertically. I think we may discover it is something like a necessary but not sufficient condition.

Peace.

Chris

Re: Indigo Buddhism?

” And 2.” That for the accomplishment of the student to equal  that of the teacher deminishes the teachings by half. In order for transmition to be complete, the student must surpass the teacher.”

I mentioned this to Andrew Cohen once, that if not the students at least accomplishes the same level of realization or surpasses ones teacher, slowly but surely the linage will die out. He responded heartedly and made a move to leave the room saying something of the kind; well, I might as well give up now then. I held out my hands, stopping him to leave. This was all very sweet, but it made a point. Throughout history there have been exeptional teachers that revived their linaeges and breathed fresh air into the dharma. These teachers would always prompt a revival of the original teachings handed down from the founding fathers; the Buddha, Jesus etc. They would bring a fresh and new understanding to a teaching that inherently was complete but that had over time lost its deeper meaning due to the inability of its proponents. This is completly natural and that will always be the case, but as the world slowly awakes and matures, more and more people will be able to carry the dharma, informed by our growing total understanding of the world, and when a “reformer” comes around and shakes the dust of old teachings, we are so much more ready to hear the news.

I firmly believe we can sit in our room and still appreciate and embrace a world or cosmic vision regardless of the cultures/age at hand. The Buddhas understanding towards a wholistic and fully encompassing world view seems to have been complete, and Jesus outlook seemed to embrace all aspects, from the individual to society, to world and cosmic union. The Buddha and Jesus still adhered the norm of the cultures at hand, which is simply normal, but held a vision that long surpassed their own time and circumstances. This is what we're struggling with, the birthpains of a yet another renewal and reformation of consciousness and of the lives that we lead. All information helps to move it forward, but never (I believe) will the teachings of the Buddha and of Jesus become obsolete.

The Zen tradition spells out perfectly how the Dharma can ever be renewed in its expression without nullifying any of its founding tenets. A perfect teaching will last into eternity. And Ken Wilber does a good job of providing new ways of viewing it, but he hardly promotes anything new. And yet still, it's all so new to us. Ever new. The Dharma has no breaks in it, seamless it flows on. Time stops for no one.

Re: Indigo Buddhism?

Here’s what Balder said in his Intersubjectivity Part 3 blog at http://brucealderman.zaadz.com/blog. I hope Hokai joins in with his recent information.

Thanks for those quotes, Edward. I’m familiar with them – and I’ve also asked, on Integral forums, about just how this “breaks down”…what aspects of Buddhism Wilber sees as turquoise or higher, as opposed to those teachings which are clearly more mythological or at least “first tier.” I have not gotten a clear answer, and I’m not sure Ken has given one (in print).

I did ask Hokai, another member of Zaadz and the Multiplex, if he would care to comment here on my blog, since he has just returned from a conference on “Integral Mahamudra” and I expect he may have a clearer idea about Ken’s ideas in this area. I haven’t heard back from him yet, and I don’t really know if he does have a clearer idea, but we’ll see…

Re: Indigo Buddhism?

A few quick responses to the above so far.

Jiki,

Why do I ask? I inquire into things I don’t understand, and this is one of them.

Also my sense is that our ITPs (or ILPs [TM]) are not just taking up various practices “as they are” within their original context (like meditation) and then just adding an AQAL framework around them. It seems to me that the practices themselves have to evolve and be transformed by our “integral” enactive paradigm. So it’s not enough to just take up the “ususal” Buddhist meditation program if it is in fact embedded in lower memes. We have to create new practices, including meditative, that fit our developmental context. Otherwise we’re the same old embeddeness but with new AQAL clothes.

Chris,

Yes, I can see that the incipient indigo wave of cognition might’ve been involved in the formation of said meditative traditions. Like the rational wave has been around at least since the Greeks (and probably before), but it has developed in both content and context since then. But in both cases, it’s not the same wave; it has been transformed by both time and development. So again I think it’s vison-logical to posit that it’s not going to be the “same” interpretation as the originators. Granted we’re just laying down the kosmic groove and not sure what it is yet, as we’re in the process of creating it. So two things: 1) it certainly ain’t what it was originally so to regurgiate what was is a sign of error; and 2) we need to guard against closing down this incipient wave with our dogmatic insistence that it already is well defined and our preferred definition is the one, true interpretation. I’d even go so far as to say that “openness” of interpretation, short of so-called pluralistic “anything goes,” is one of the hallmarks of this wave.

Re: Indigo Buddhism?

Hi, Edward,

I think you're making some excellent points.  It relates to earlier discussions we've had where we considered whether “enlightenment” is still a useful term, for instance; or at least, whether we need to (possibly radically) reformulate what it means.  In those discussions, I resisted the suggestion that it needs to be discarded altogether, but I do agree that we cannot assume that the meaning of the term is “timeless” and unchanging.

I am not entirely sold on the WC Lattice (I think some things still need to be worked out, or at least fleshed out in ways that have not been articulated yet), but in general, I understand the suggestion to be that there are states which are relatively stable (in evolutionary history) and which are always present and/or accessible; but that there are also stages of cognitive development which are much more dynamic, and which have been unfolding throughout human evolution.  What is not clear, from what Wilber has written, is if he regards these states as universal (Kosmic) givens, which are available to all sentient holons at all times; or whether they are also evolutionarily emergent and are really only available to fairly advanced biological organisms.  If the latter, that certainly changes the “meaning” of enlightenment.  A question is, what is the relationship of “states” to what we might call the Whole - to the undivided (but also indeterminate) field of appearances that we call the universe, or the Kosmos?  Even more fundamentally, in the Kosmic scheme of things, what IS a state?  Is nonduality really a particular (discrete) state of consciousness?  (I know of some nondual teachings which would certainly dispute this).  If so, is it some sort of “window” on, or does it provide access to (or enact), a different level of order in the Kosmos?

Wilber has defined enlightenment as state-stabilization in the “deepest” state available to us (which discloses an experience of “oneness” with the Kosmos as a whole, at whatever stage it is in evolution at that point in time).  In his scheme, states appear to be an expression of a (relatively) timeless dimension of being…constants which may infuse and inform any relative level of development.  But I do not believe he has really spelled these things out very clearly - at least, not that I've seen.  Or else I haven't fully grasped what he's saying…since I have the sorts of questions that I mentioned above.  (E.g., the relationship of “states” to Kosmos and/or Spirit as a whole, whether they are evolutionarily emergent or involutionarily “given,” etc).

When Wilber “stacked” subtle, causal, and nondual on top of the developmental stages, that had a certain elegance, but it also involved certain problems; but it seems to me that the WC Lattice is (at this point) in the same boat:  elegant, but still partly problematic.

A question that arose for me when I first learned of this model, which may seem frivolously speculative but which I do think has bearing on the meaning of the lattice (since it appears to unearth certain presuppositions or biases in it), is this:  Can we say, universally, what “stage” Kosmic evolution has really reached?  We can testify to the stages available on earth, but who can say what has arisen on other planetary systems, assuming there is other life in the universe?  When we speak of the leading edge of Kosmic evolution, but define it in terms of what has appeared in human history, then either we are assuming that we are the most advanced species in the universe, or else we are ignoring whatever else might be out there and taking a questionable anthropocentric perspective (perhaps simply because we can't say one way or the other what has emerged elsewhere).  If you define enlightenment as “oneness” with the entire Kosmos at its leading edge of evolution, then what does this mean if there are other beings who are more advanced than we are?  Are those stages also available to human beings, if the “Kosmic grooves” have been laid down elsewhere?  If there is no way for us to tap in to whatever level other sentient beings may have reached (for whatever reason), then aren't we being irresponsible or at least hyperbolic to define enlightenment as “oneness with the leading edge of evolution”?  Shouldn't we qualify that somehow?

There are a number of presuppositions here.  One, that time is linear, and that state-stabilization and experiences of oneness put us in touch only with what has unfolded, so far, in linear history.  But linear history itself may be a fiction (at least a “field” enacted by certain limited perspectives, as Einstein's “block time” suggests).  Two, that humans are either the leading edge of the Kosmic flowering of intelligence; or else that “oneness” is spatially as well as temporally bounded, and very likely a species-specific and biologically determined phenomenon. 

Etc.

I may be off here, or just missing some vital clues.  But it seems to me there is a lot yet to work out here.

Best wishes,

Balder

Re: Indigo Buddhism?

Balder says:

“We can testify to the stages available on earth, but who can say what has arisen on other planetary systems, assuming there is other life in the universe? When we speak of the leading edge of Kosmic evolution, but define it in terms of what has appeared in human history, then either we are assuming that we are the most advanced species in the universe, or else we are ignoring whatever else might be out there and taking a questionable anthropocentric perspective (perhaps simply because we can’t say one way or the other what has emerged elsewhere).”

Beautifully put - but why not go further? What if “our” reality is one of countless realities? What if our reality is only an atom in another reality, which is only an atom in another reality; just like all the atoms in our realities are universes in their own right, in which every atom is again a universe in it’s own right?

What if the play of Eros and Agape is playing out in all these dimensions - time is obviously meaningless (one breath would signify eons one step “up”). Realization and enlightenment in our limited perspective would surely take on a different meaning…

Just a thought - Frans

Re: Indigo Buddhism?

Thanks Edward,

My asking,”Why do you ask” came straight out of my inability to get a sense of you as a person, where the issue is active for you, simply by reading your post.

Next you wrote:”Also my sense is that our ITPs (or ILPs [TM] ) are not just taking up various practices “as they are” within their original context (like meditation) and then just adding an AQAL framework around them. It  seems to me that the practices  themselves have to evolve and be tranformed by our “integral” enactive paradigm. So it's not enough to just take up the “usual” Buddhist meditation program if it is in fact embedded in lower memes. We have to create new practices, includung meditative, that fit our developmental context. Otherwise we're the same old embeddedness but with AQAL clothes.”

It sounds to me that some of what you are calling for is already the case. That practices themselves are not set programs, inherited, embedded, or imposed but are transformed in the present occasion of the meme at which the practice is perspected. That an injunction is only enacted through the address of the practicioner and not another address of another occasion.

Bjorn spoke to this beautifully.

In my view, Buddhism allows for evolutionary impulse, for the imperminance of memetic ceilings. Dialectics and deconstruction are old habits to Zen, central to the traditions continuity. While all but immune from plateau stagnations and episodic, periodic regressions, the inevitability of transcendence / inclusion is (at best) implicit in the practice. Even doctrine, recognized as necessarily provisional, is traditionally exposed to rigorous revisioning, on-going development. Some of the open orientation I see in Zen I'd call proto-integral. Recounting the “patternless patterns” of upaya, of skillfull means, I notice an evolutionary pragmatism. Skillfull Means (say, taking-the-shape-of-the-LL-vessel, or responding in the-mirror-of-samadhi) seems to frequently refer to an acounting for all four quadrants.

Am I playing dress-up in AQAL? It's not for me to say.

                                                                     ~~~

Balder,

re: KW the cartographer

I think that Ken, or any prudent theorist, does well to taylor their puplic statements to within a range of palletable discourse, thereby gaining a traction in the current zietgiest. A credability with which they can then lead the edge with valid insights (which , if issued with blind timing may undermine the efficacy if their work).

A kind of politics of parenting, or husbandry, applied to intellectual stewardship?

Be Well Folks,

jiki

Re: Indigo Buddhism?

Jiki,

Thanks for the spirited defense of Buddhism’s openess and flexibility to innovation and growth. Those are the qualites within the context of “indigo” to which I was referring.

Now could you provide us with specific examples of how Buddhism has done so with regard to practices and doctrines? And what do you suppose Ken is referring to regarding the not so developed aspects of Buddhism, beside his one example of the Dalai Lama having an aversion to oral sex?

Re: Indigo Buddhism?

I think you'd have to take Appendix II of IS into account here (Integral Post-Metaphysics):

So, in todays world, what would constitute Enlightenment? What are the highest states and stages available in the Kosmos? At the very least, it would mean indigo altitude in the cognitive and self lines, as well as a mastery of the 4 or so major states (which includes access to gross, subtle, causal, and nondual). (Page 246)

I read this as a suggestion, see also the context of this sentence (I don't really feel like typing the entire page). I don't think KW is trying to be the one to determine who is or isn't enlightened.

Also, as I see it, we don't really need the W-C lattice to point out the need for a new definition of Enlightenment, so it doesn't depend on the validity of the lattice concept. The point here, is to have a meaningful definition which takes evolution into account: if Enlightenment is to mean being one with both Form and Emptiness, and Form changes during the course of evolution, then Enlightenment is different at different moments in evolution.

My guess would be that using a linear time perspective is what necessitates this particular definition of Enlightenment. When using a different kind of time perspective, such a definition would either be entirely different or not needed. Or do others see this differently?

Besides that: KW clearly states in IS that the W-C lattice as drawn on page 90 is a simple version. The main point is that structures and states overlap in complex ways, and KW has probably just scratched the surface by writing what he did. Maybe we should keep that in mind?

So the point is, that you can discuss or explain a definition in terms of the W-C lattice, but it doesn't have to depend on it.

This still leaves several issues open that were raised here, including Balder's remark on other highy evolved life forms in the Kosmos. Maybe we should add a spatial component to the definition, and not just a temporal one :)

Peter
 

Re: Indigo Buddhism?

Peter,

Another thing to consider is that not only Form but Emptiness changes too! How can that be? Isn't it supposed to be formless and unchanging? Well yes, and no. As I think Ken pointed out, even emptiness has to be interpreted, and that interpretation evolves. Hence we do have an unlimited, infinite in Derrida's thought, but it doesn't look like the perennial tradition's. And despite Ken's postmetaphysical turn debunking the myth of the given, it is still only applicable to the “relative” realm and not the “absolute,” He stills leaves the back door open for direct perception of this absolute where all bets are off, so to speak.

Whereas Derrida (and many other pomoers), while having a undecontructable in his view, doesn't allow that it is possible to directly perceive but we can still let that notion practically inform our ways of thinking, being and doing. The notion of emptiness is still there but it is reinterpreted appropriately within the developmental, contextual milieu. And it seems that Ken is still interpreting emptiness within a traditional context so I'm suggesting even emptiness has to change in this regard.

Re: Indigo Buddhism?

What is evolving? Is form evolving or thoughts about form? Both? Does it matter in regards to emptiness?

Let's look at the heart sutra for some help.


Here, Sariputra, form is emptiness and the very emptiness is form; emptiness does not differ from form, form does not differ from emptiness; whatever is form, that is emptiness, whatever is emptiness, that is form, the same is true of feelings, perceptions, impulses and consciousness.

Here, Sariputra, all dharmas are marked with emptiness; they are not produced or stopped, not defiled or immaculate, not deficient or complete.

(yes so they are free to evolve or devolve)

Therefore, Sariputra, in emptiness there is no form, nor feeling, nor perception, nor impulse, nor consciousness; …

At the end here you can keep adding to the list as far as the mind can conceive. And so you see that emptiness does not change.


peace & love,

e

Re: Indigo Buddhism?

theurj:
Another thing to consider is that not only Form but Emptiness changes too! How can that be? Isn't it supposed to be formless and unchanging? Well yes, and no. As I think Ken pointed out, even emptiness has to be interpreted, and that interpretation evolves.

What changes are perspectives on Emptiness, and these perspectives are part of Form. This leaves Emptiness itself unchanged. Any interpretation takes place in the relative realm. So I agree with ~e~ here.

And despite Ken's postmetaphysical turn debunking the myth of the given, it is still only applicable to the “relative” realm and not the “absolute” He stills leaves the back door open for direct perception of this absolute where all bets are off, so to speak.

There's a difference between direct perception of the absolute, and the interpretation of the experience afterwards. Again, that interpretation is done from the relative realm, which is subject to Ken's post-metaphysics. So I don't really see a problem here; could you point out what I'm overlooking?

Peter

Re: Indigo Buddhism?

Can there be any experience, including what we think is an experience of the “absolute,” without interpretation? And is that interpretation only “afterward” or is it involved in the very experience in the first place? Is it possible to have direct perception of the infinite without interpretation, even in the moment of that experience? Is that not the myth of the given?

Re: Indigo Buddhism?

As Ken said in Integral Spirituality (draft) regarding the myth of the given, pp. 207-8:

–the belief that the consciousness of an individual will deliver truth. This is why
Habermas calls the myth of the given by the phrase “the philosophy of consciousness”-
and that is what he is criticizing because it is blind to intersubjectivity, among other
things. As we have been saying throughout this book, consciousness itself simply cannot see zones #2 and #4, and therefore is deficient in and of itself (e.g., “Not through
introspection but through history do we come to know ourselves”). You can introspect
all you want and you won’t see those other truths. So consciousness itself is deficient-
whether personal or transpersonal, whether pure or not pure, essential or relative, high or
low, big mind or small mind, vipassana, bare attention, centering prayer, contemplative
awareness-none of them can see these other truths, and that is why Habermas and the
postmodernists extensively criticize “the philosophy of consciousness.”

Re: Indigo Buddhism?

Theurj:

“Can there be any experience, including what we think is an experience of the “absolute,” without interpretation? And is that interpretation only “afterward” or is it involved in the very experience in the first place? Is it possible to have direct perception of the infinite without interpretation, even in the moment of that experience? Is that not the myth of the given?”

There is such a thing as “ultimat Experience” - interpretation is the ego influence of that experience, just the same as introspection is ego activity. It has nothing to do with ultimate Experience. Experience has nothing to do with the belief that an individual’s consciousness will deliver truth - it has nothing to do with any philosophy, it has nothing to do with anything, it JUST IS.

Frans

Re: Indigo Buddhism?

“Can there be any experience, including what we think is an experience of the “absolute,” without interpretation?

I would say yes. This is how I recall my awakening,

Then came the day that would be the end of my search and the beginning of a new life. Maybe a week ten days after first meeting Andrew I was strolling around the stupa when suddenly I saw and understood: I have always been free and I have always known it. This was so subtle, so fine, I almost forgot it. But in the days that came I recalled it. Listening to Andrew in satsang suddenly I realized I understood what he was speaking about. Then I remembered everything clearly what had happened the day before. I had always been free and I had always enjoyed this natural freedom. This mystified me as why then had I been seeking. So I searched in my memory to see if it was true. I looked back on when I was five years old, when I had been 10 and when I had been 15 years of age, and at every instance I had been free. There never had been any obstacles, there are no obstacles and there never will be any obstacles. It was so easy, so simple. I was full of joy. When I recollected the event and remembered the view I had I saw that I had seen the scenery in front of my eyes just I as I do now but the seeing itself was coming from a limitless depth behind my eyes. I who saw was out of this world, out of time, seeing through my eyes, into this world, into a world that was a dream. This is such a gem. I wondered why I had almost missed it, why it hadn't been obvious at the time it happened. So I looked at the event again and saw that the view wasn't anything other than this everyday vision I have every day, here and now (and as you have right now too). That was why I hadn't recognized it immediately, because it is this ordinary view that we have all the time. Nothing had changed, nothing happened, there was no “experience”. The seeing had just been there when understanding came. But the understanding cleared the egos veils of wrongly identifying with this person. This really blew me away, that this is our everyday seeing, right now as I write this. Nothing extraordinary, just plain normal. I just saw my true nature, my real self.

Re: Indigo Buddhism?

“Can there be any experience, including what we think is an experience of the “absolute,”
without interpretation?

Yes, sort of, as Emptiness is not really an experience subject/object wise.

“Therefore, in Emptiness There Are No Forms,
No Feelings, Perceptions, Volitions or Consciousness.”

(You are 'not in Kansas' at this point. *You* and *Kansas* exiting stage left. : -) )




And is that interpretation only “afterward” or is it involved in the very experience in the first place?

Any discursive thoughts while in emptiness will be seen to be empty. Sliding out of awarness like water off a duck's back.




Is it possible to have direct perception of the infinite without interpretation, even in the moment of that experience? Is that not the myth of the given?”

The myth of the given is predicated on the 'ding an sich' (thing in itself).

Emptiness is not a thing. All things are empty (of an ontological self). Even emptiness is empty.



p&l,

e

PS Emptiness is not properly infinite. But finite and infinte cognition is empty.

Re: Indigo Buddhism?

Hey everyone

Some of the points in this discussion came up when I was talking to Ken on the IS Appendix 2 Con Call on Saturday.  I'll do my best to articulate some of his points, though I might miss some of the finer points as this is from memory…

3rd tier structure-stages (indego and beyond) are inextricably linked to state-stages - thus the reason he confused them for so long.  so…in order to achive an ultraviolet structure stage CoG, you also have to have a state stage CoG at Causal - you sumply cannot attain ultra-violet without it, that aweness is part of the actual structure.  You can however, achieve the reverse…as is obvious.

He said pretty catagorically that people like Nargajuna and Plotinus were operating from turquiose cognitively…but no more.  They were laying down state-stage Kosmic groves NOT structure-stage Kosmic grooves.  They develop independantly!

Ewan

Re: Indigo Buddhism?

Ewan:
3rd tier structure-stages (indego and beyond) are inextricably linked to state-stages - thus the reason he confused them for so long.  so…in order to achive an ultraviolet structure stage CoG, you also have to have a state stage CoG at Causal - you sumply cannot attain ultra-violet without it, that aweness is part of the actual structure.  You can however, achieve the reverse…as is obvious.

Okay, I think this is pretty much what KW says in IS as well.


He said pretty catagorically that people like Nargajuna and Plotinus were operating from turquiose cognitively…but no more.  They were laying down state-stage Kosmic groves NOT structure-stage Kosmic grooves.  They develop independantly!

In order to operate from turquoise cognitively, you need to have developed the corresponding structure in the cognitive line (so they might have been laying these particular grooves down as well? Or was that already available?). And indeed, this does not mean that they had their CoG at turquoise, since that usually is below your top cognitive capacity. They wouldn't have been laying down the entire turquoise structure-stage, then. Is this what Ken was saying?

Still not clear if Ken literally means turquoise here, or integral (teal/turquoise). Business as usual … :)

Anyhow, full development of a structure-stage takes a lot of time, apparently. Having a funky deep groove, I mean.

The state-stage they were laying down would have been the nondual state? As I understand, Nagarjuna and Plotinus were among the first to reach that stage, somewhere around 250 AD. For Guatama Buddha, for instance, who lived some 600 years earlier, causal was the highest state.

Makes sense.

Peter

Re: Indigo Buddhism?

Hey Peter

In order to operate from turquoise cognitively, you need to have developed the corresponding structure in the cognitive line (so they might have been laying these particular grooves down as well? Or was that already available?). And indeed, this does not mean that they had their CoG at turquoise, since that usually is below your top cognitive capacity. They wouldn't have been laying down the entire turquoise structure-stage, then. Is this what Ken was saying?

Yes, I think so.  They were laying down parts of turquiose structure grooves - cognitive structures are always going to be the first - but I think its safe to say they wern't operating from a turquiose CoG.

Anyhow, full development of a structure-stage takes a lot of time, apparently. Having a funky deep groove, I mean.

Yeah, absolutely, its still happening now.  Turquiose grooves in the lower quadrants are very un-developed still.

The state-stage they were laying down would have been the nondual state? As I understand, Nagarjuna and Plotinus were among the first to reach that stage, somewhere around 250 AD. For Guatama Buddha, for instance, who lived some 600 years earlier, causal was the highest state.

Yes, thats my understanding as well.  Which is also why he mentions in the 1-2-3 of god that early shamans can be said to have been enlightened at Magenta/Red, Causal.  Non-dual wasn't available to them.  So what comes after non-dual, thats what I want to know! :)

Ewan

Re: Indigo Buddhism?

theurj,
“(E.g., according to his secretary, the Dalai Lama believes homosexuality is a sin, anal sex is a sin, oral sex is bad karma, etc.—when everybody knows that oral sex is not bad karma, only bad oral sex is bad karma…. But these sadly are typical mythic-amber beliefs.) (117-18)

In the meantime, Asian meditation teachers, with a LL-quadrant that is heavily amber, or mythic-membership, and hence “non-egoic” in the sense of PREinvidualistic, and therefore used to having students simply obey them unhesitatingly and in a conformist-stage fashion, don’t quite know what to do with individualistic-stage Westerners, whose LL-quadrant is loaded orange-to-green. (118)”

First, let's not assume that the Dalai Lama is an enlightened being. He was born into a political position, and his own development is up to him. Whereas the Grandmaster for the Chung Tain Ch'an sect of Chinese Zen in Taiwan began with a small meditation hall, and now operates dozens of meditation centers around the world, and has built the largest Buddhist Temple in the world, in his lifetime. We have to see the difference between individual merit and an esoteric political appointment.
Also, from what I understand, the Kalama Sutra was never translated into Tibetian. This is the Zen sutra in which the Buddha tells the Kalamas not to believe in anything they see, hear or read from an outside source, until they have examined it in detail and compared it to direct experience. I believe it was Steven Batchelor who talks about his experience transitioning from being a Tibetan monk to a Zen monk in Korea. He talks about going from not questioning anything, to having to question literally everything.

Another thing that we have to look at, and which is almost wholly ignored, is that meditation is only 1 part of the 8 fold path. KW is absolutely right, that meditative practice will only get you so far, but it seems that he fails to mention that that is what the other 7 parts are for.
When taken in totality, the 8 fold path doesn't somehow cause enlightenment, after all to say so would be to invalidate the concept of dependence origination. The 8 fold path, when taken seriously, opens up the space to allow for personal development.

When we look at our lives deeply, we find that we have very little control over the whole thing. What we have control over are the moment-to-moment things that facilitate certain outcomes. So, if you would like to have a certain career, there are a great many steps that contain further steps, etc… we can't just wake up one day and have the dream career, but we can put things in motion moment-to-moment. Enlightenment is like this.

So, if a person meditated regularly, but doesn't follow the other 7 steps, then they aren't really commited to the process of ending suffering. I know this from personal experience, because I still haven't fully commited. But I do know that when trying to overcome the delusion of inherent characteristics, it is counter-productive to meditate and still do things like watch porn, or drinking/drugs, non-commited sex, etc… By meditating you are developing the space and concentration necessary, but all the other things are reinforcing the status quo. Its all about conditioning the mind.

That is why there are so few really enlightened beings, and why we sit around and muse about enlightenment.

E has posted a part of the Heart Sutra that really says it all, and wasn't written by someone merely able to acheive high meditative states. When we look at what ethnocentrism is, it is really just saying and expressing the belief in inherent characteristics. Without that base belief, there would be no way of expressing either aversion or attraction to various behaviors, beliefs, or customs; be them your own or another's. When you read Nargarjuna, for example, he so thoroughly destroys any attempt towards realism and belief in inherent characteristics, that to think the man was only meditatively achieved is too much.

Let's face it. When someone creates a theoretical framework to explain everything and encompass the whole, they will always have inconsistencies in the system. The most commmon course of action when dealing with inconsistencies or inconguities, is to either ignore them or explain them away. So, I'm skeptical when KW says that because certain people in history don't seem to fit neatly into his AQAL framework, that they have to change and not his framework.
As Katagiri says, “Whatever you think, that is delusion.”

Re: Indigo Buddhism?

holden:
So, I'm skeptical when KW says that because certain people in history don't seem to fit neatly into his AQAL framework, that they have to change and not his framework.

And where exactly did he say that???

As Katagiri says, “Whatever you think, that is delusion.”

I'm going to remind you on that one :)

Peter

Re: Indigo Buddhism?

“And where exactly did he say that???”

I am responding more to what people are saying that KW is saying than to anything that I've actually heard or read him say. To say that the Buddha could only be at a Causal level, because that is the only thing that the model allows. That seems to be imposing a post de facto reasoning upon history.
People can say anything they want about enlightenment, but within the sphere of Buddhism is it largely undefined, in that it is a quality of mind that isn't able to be defined. It is said over and over, that if you fundementally understand the true nature of mind and reality itself, not theoretically, but know it like you know the sun is shinning, then you are enlightened. After that, there may be degrees of relative knowledge that are different or a deeper understanding incorporated upon this fundamental understanding, but that doesn't change the essential quality of the enlightened mind; which is empty of an inherent self. There are not greater or lesser degrees of emptiness.
What I see KW doing is pioneering a greater understanding and inquiry into the relative nature of things, but the absolute nature of things doesn't change.
As Bodhidharma says:

“When a thought begins, you enter the three realms. When a thought ends, you leave the three realms. The beginning or end of the three realms, the existence or nonexistence of anything, depends on the mind. This applies to everything, even to such inanimate objects as rocks and sticks.

Whoever knows that the mind is a fiction and devoid of anything real knows that his own mind neither exists nor doesn’t exist. Mortals keep creating the mind, claiming it exists. And Arhats keep negating the mind, claiming it doesn’t exist. But bodhisattvas and Buddhas neither create nor negate the mind. This is what’s meant by the mind that neither exists nor doesn’t exist. The mind that neither exists nor doesn’t exist is called the Middle Way.

If you use your mind to study reality, you won’t understand either your mind or reality. If you study reality without using your mind, you’ll understand both. Those who don’t understand don’t understand understanding. And those who understand, understand not understanding. People capable of true vision know that the mind is empty. They transcend both understanding and not understanding. The absence of both understanding and not understanding is true understanding Seen with true vision, form isn’t simply form, because form depends on mind. And mind isn’t simply mind, because mind depends on form. Mind and form create and negate each other. That which exists exists in relation to that which doesn’t exist. And that which doesn’t exist doesn’t exist in relation to that which exists. This is true vision. By means of such vision nothing is seen and nothing is not seen. Such vision reaches throughout the ten directions without seeing: because nothing is seen; because not seeing is seen; because seeing isn’t seeing. What mortals see are delusions. True vision is detached from seeing. The mind and the world are opposites, and vision arises where they meet. When your mind doesn’t stir inside, the world doesn’t arise outside. When the world and the mind are both transparent, this is true vision. And such understanding is true understanding.”

Re: Indigo Buddhism?

Nicely put Holden.

It’s the paradox: you can never understand by studying reality, yet studying reality is the only way to get to that realization. This is the point where mind gets left behind - no matter if it exists or doesn’t exist.

I think KW would agree with you too; he is trying to get more people to that realization…

Frans

Re: Indigo Buddhism?

theurj,
“Another thing to consider is that not only Form but Emptiness changes too! How can that be? Isn't it supposed to be formless and unchanging? Well yes, and no. As I think Ken pointed out, even emptiness has to be interpreted, and that interpretation evolves.”

Again, e already posted the Heart Sutra, but it seems that more elaboration needs to be done. When the Sutra says, “Form is emptiness and emptiness is form. Form is no different from emptiness and neither….”
It is being very literal. I've found that myterious and esoteric sounding sutras are actually very literal, but only sound vague because the person isn't at the stage yet needed to understand them. That's why we have koans. If you don't get it, then keep working, and if you think you've found an answer to the koan, then a lot more work needs to be done.
If you think of emptiness as a thing or something that changes in time or the place that form happens in, like emptiness is another way of saying Spirit, then your not looking closely. Form “is” emptiness. This is expressing an understanding of two truths. The relative and the absolute. The absolute truth of everything does not change, it does not evolve. All things were empty of inherent characteristics 10,000 years ago as they are now. This hasn't changed. The understanding of this doesn't change.  This is saying that there is relative “form” and form is really just a confusing and esoteric way of saying “matter.” But, that this relative truth can't be explained or expressed. Anything that can be explained is something, and we are not dealing with something; yet there is something and that is “ungraspable”. Relative reality, the reality of picking something out of the Whole to measure via consciousness, and seeing that there is evolving in what is measured, is true. Therefore there is evolution, as there is nothing that isn't change itself.  But, the reality of whatever that you have decided to measure not having any inherent and unconditioned characteristics is the same, it does not evolve. There is nothing to evolve.

Re: Indigo Buddhism?

The issue is not whether emptiness itself changes. Obvioulsy the timeless and unchanging doesn't change. The issues are 1) whether we can directly experience this “absolute” free of relative interpretations. Whether that is yes or no it still seems we 2) have to interpret the experience and that, it seems all are agreed, is relative-develomental (it changes). And I'm saying is that more recent, postmodern (and/or integral) interpretations of this “emptiness” might be more accurate than the more traditional ones, like the sutras. It certainly seems, given Ken's above arguments, to make some sense.

Another issue is this: What is a center of gravity? Previously Ken said it had to do with the self-related lines, like cognition and ego development, which act as an organizer of all the other lines. In IS though we get this notion of overall altitutude being measured by “consciounsess per se” (CPS). It's description as the open space in which phenomenon arise to be the causal emptiness in the scale of the emptiness/form duality. In which case I'm still confused because I thought that consciousess of any variety, including transcendental, is UL and blind to the other zones, particularly intersubjectivity.

Regarding the latter topic in relation to all this, see Balder's blog on intersubjectivity part 3. If Habermas/Mead are correct that an “I” cannot even exist without the socialization process in regard to others, and if this “I” is developmental, and if this “I” is a prerequisted to awareness of states in the first place…I think you can see where this is going.

Re: Indigo Buddhism?

Theurj:   In which case I'm still confused because I thought that consciousess of any variety, including transcendental, is UL and blind to the other zones, particularly intersubjectivity.

Can you spell out what you mean here?  Because if consciousness is blind to all of the other zones, then of course there would be no awareness whatsoever of any of the zones; we wouldn't even be able to speak about them.  I think this drives an unwarranted (reified) wedge between the quadrants.  When Wilber mentions that Zone 1 is blind to intersubjectivity (for instance), I believe what he is saying is that certain Zone 1 methods (such as “bare attention”) cannot, of themselves, discover the data disclosed by other methods of inquiry. 

Although this is something of an aside, it seems to me that some of Wilber's “indigenous perspectives” should more properly be termed con-perspectives, because there is a significant amount of “thinking” and analysis involved in them.  They hardly appear to be primordial or “indigenous,” at least on the level that we commonly deal with them (the examples Wilber lists on his chart); they must be learned and sometimes require high-level training.

Theurj:  Regarding the latter topic in relation to all this, see Balder's blog on intersubjectivity part 3. If Habermas/Mead are correct that an “I” cannot even exist without the socialization process in regard to others, and if this “I” is developmental, and if this “I” is a prerequisted to awareness of states in the first place…I think you can see where this is going.

I've been thinking about this over the weekend, and have been doing a little reading (most recently, two of David Loy's essays on Derrida and Nagarjuna).  Buddhist teachings are quite clear that the I lacks self-existence (or, in Derrida's terms, self-presence.)  The I is empty – it is dependently originated, bearing the traces of not-I in its very constitution.

Here is the challenge I think you are posing:  Not only is the self a construct (the Buddhists admit this), but the self is a developmentally necessary precondition for being able to perceive/realize/integrate with the states and insights which constitute Buddhist soteriology.  In other words, the “buddhanature” which Buddhists perceive and consider to be atemporally present, is actually a conperception which can only be enacted by a sufficiently developed mind (and therefore is actually not atemporal at all).

If my understanding of the challenge you are raising is correct, I'll attempt an answer in another post.

Best wishes,

Balder

Re: Indigo Buddhism?

Balder,

Yes, as usual you clarify with specificity. It didn't make sense to me either that consciousness per se is not aware of intersubjectivity (IS), for as you say, then how did it become aware of it at all? So more specifically, methods that produce “states” by themselves cannot see IS. And it seems the IS methods developed by pomo were not available to our meditation originators, although you provided an article contending that in your blog.

And yes, I am suggesting as you say that buddhanature might not be atemporal for the stated reasons. I look forward to your response, which I'm guessing will include the above reference? I hope so, as it's an interesting one to explore.

Re: Indigo Buddhism?

A laying down of the idea of separate self-hood. There is no individual, no entity, no separate selves. There exist no separate life. Non-duality means not two. There is no “my life”. There is existence, life and consciousness. There is only the whole. You don't exist. If you believe it, you separate yourself from life and become unreachable, because you place yourself on an island. The Buddha called it “the conceit of I”. A belief in “I” places you among the non-believers. The laying down of this idea of a separate self-hood places you among the normal.

Being nobody implies laying down the notion of separate existence. Being nobody implies freedom from self. “Buddha nature” signifies no separate existence. Being nobody implies no entity. Being nobody refers to no one. Absence of separate self.

There is, there is not. Positive, negative. Views, convictions. All create proportional emotional experiences. As you view life so it appears to you, and so it will respond to you, affirming your view. Your view projects itself outwards, and like in a mirror, is reflected back in precise detail. And you say, “-See, I was right!”

What does it matter which view is true if the personal doesn't exist? Anything you are holding up fall within the realm of existence and non-existence. Freedom is not about choosing the positive over the negative. Freedom signifies freedom from belief in separate self-hood. Freedom being all one. Freedom signifies no boundaries, no limits. Freedom means nothing to protect nothing to justify. Freedom from self.

Mind is Buddha. This mind of ours is really nothing wrong with, and it's not even limited. Our mind is infinite and contains everything. Thinking is not limited. Thinking is activity of total freedom. Where is there a limit to your thinking? Mind is really ungraspable. It is the most mysterious of all the secrets. Mind is Buddha, and you are using mind every day, and you are using Buddha without even knowing it. It has infinite capacity. It has no shape. The only mistake you make is to postulate an “I”. This is pure mind. -Not tainted by ignorance.

Real Time. Mind exists within real time. Real time is the arena of mind. Real time is the lifeblood of the Buddha.

Seeing freed from misidentification one sees the world in its true light, and everything is seen as it is. False as false and true as true. All things perfect as they are. Of one taste, of one flavor. All being an expression of THAT which lays behind, -the never changing nature. Seeing all in this true perspective one knows how to act in accordance with the changing circumstances. Everything and everybody are revealed by their appearances. Nothing is hidden. All being of one taste, there is nothing to avoid. Seeing freed from belief in separate self-hood reveals a limitless and timeless objective view. In THAT oneself and everything else is seen clearly just as it is.

As long as there is any need to keep yourself at arms length, at a safe distance, there haven't been a breakthrough and it will always keep you from true union, true love. Give up the idea of personal ego hood. Realize that there is nothing to protect, nothing to justify. Dare to give up the idea of being special.

Re: Indigo Buddhism?

Regarding the latter topic in relation to all this, see Balder's blog on intersubjectivity part 3. If Habermas/Mead are correct that an “I” cannot even exist without the socialization process in regard to others, and if this “I” is developmental, and if this “I” is a prerequisted to awareness of states in the first place…I think you can see where this is going.

In my experience that is not correct. When I was less than one year old I had a lucid clear awakening/experience that has stayed in my memory ever since. I was sitting in my fathers lap in front of an open fire. Everything was safe, warm and comfortable. My mind just opened to a lucid understanding of myself just as I was. The room and surroundings were imbued with this “feeling-knowledge” of who I was. Knowing exactly who and what I was; free and perfectly at ease. This first realization of an absolute being revealed my inherent knowledge of myself, of my “I”. This is not something that needs to be developed. It is inherent in our fundamental absolute being.

Re: Indigo Buddhism?

“The issue is not whether emptiness itself changes. Obvioulsy the timeless and unchanging doesn't change. The issues are 1) whether we can directly experience this “absolute” free of relative interpretations. Whether that is yes or no it still seems we 2) have to interpret the experience and that, it seems all are agreed, is relative-develomental (it changes).”

As my mother says, “All I have to do is die.”
The traditions are clear and direct experience bears out the fact that you can only experience the absolute nature of self and other directly. There is no other way to do it. In fact your doing it right now, and you can be no other way. We don't have to interpret anything. We can choose to interpret the nature of direct perception and the nature of form and emptiness, and in fact we have to if we choose to explain it or write about it, but this isn't a given.
Yes, relative truth changes. We know more about the relative nature of reality today than we knew yesterday, although, most people don't. But, any relative explanation of the Whole, or actual experience, will always be incomplete. It will always be a What aspect. That is, if I ask you what an atom are you can tell me they are a collection of sub-atom particles and we can go on forever like that, but in the end you still have no idea what an atom actually is. You've labeled it and created the illusion of certainty, but saying the word atom doesn’t tell you any more than the object it compromises.

For example, have you ever been in a store and seen an unfamiliar kind of fruit or vegetable? You can ask someone what it is, and they can tell you a name, and some how that is satisfying, but you don’t know any more about it then you did before; you just now have something to call it. The only way to really know what it is in any real way is to taste it. Then you’ll know more about it than if you studying its nutritional values and chemical make up. I'll satisfy Pelle by elaborating on this point. The fruit won't taste exactly like it does for you as it does for me, as the taste is dependent upon a great deal of conditioning. The  evolutionary biology of a person over millions of years, social/cultural, and psychological conditioning all play a role in how something tastes to a person. But, the act of tasting is universal. Just as hearing a sound is universal. Not how you feel about the sound, but the sound before any thought occurs, before any judgement, just the sound. Even a deaf person is aware that they are deaf, because that awareness is universal and that awareness is your mind. It is unconditioned, unborn and undying. It is the same as you were when you were 5 as it is now, as it will be tomorrow. That is the absolute nature of mind. Can you interpret it? 

Do you have to interpret the taste of an apple? That sounds ridiculous, but it’s no different than what you’re saying. You know what an apple tastes like, but you could never describe it to anyone in any real way. You would be left having to compare it to all that it isn’t. So is an apple just an apple or is it also everything that it is not? After all, how else would we know an apple, unless we could compare it to everything that it’s not?

Enlightenment isn’t adding anything, there is nothing to add and you couldn’t add anything if you wanted to. Let us for a moment, think about what happens as we move up the stages. Do we gain information that wasn’t there before? No, we understand what was there the whole time, right in front of us. It is a stripping away of greed, anger and delusion. People don’t just become more connected when a person moves to a green understanding. They were always interconnected, yet the world does realign itself for that one person. Objects don’t exist without mind and mind doesn’t exist without objects. Form is emptiness and emptiness is form.  

The act of interpreting is the very thing that keeps us from understanding the true nature of mind, self and other.

Re: Indigo Buddhism?

Hear hear

You are putting it very nicly Holden, thank you. You explain it clearly.

The traditions are clear and direct experience bears out the fact that you can only experience the absolute nature of self and other directly. There is no other way to do it. In fact your doing it right now, and you can be no other way. We don't have to interpret anything. We can choose to interpret the nature of direct perception and the nature of form and emptiness, and in fact we have to if we choose to explain it or write about it, but this isn't a given.

This is what Andrew Cohen in his teachings refer to when he describes that first we must be able to appreciate/understand what no relationship to mind means, and then what a perfect relationship to mind is. First we realize the empty nature of ourselves, then we know how to relate and understand our thought process, how we use mind when needed.

Then we will for the first time be able to not be fooled by our own mind. We will now be able to use it, like any other tool in the box.

Holden, from this perspective, as more and more people gather to share and to explore together, this common ground becomes a platform from which we can take communal leaps from. Leaps that reveals a new creation, a new way of relationships. A coming together that is inherent in our make up but that yet has to be awaken and made manifest among many together simultaniously. This is what can be called evolution of consciousness, as we move into a higher order of union. Something that is a more aligned manifestation of our already absolute understanding. Conscious awakening brings about real changes in the way we live and interact.

But it never will jeperdize our true common ground.

Re: Indigo Buddhism?

Hey Rick

I am responding more to what people are saying that KW is saying than to anything that I've actually heard or read him say. To say that the Buddha could only be at a Causal level, because that is the only thing that the model allows. That seems to be imposing a post de facto reasoning upon history.

If you havn't actually read or grasped the original argument I'd advise a little more caution when making assessments of Wilber's position on it.  Bending reality to fit his model is the very last thing he'd ever do.  Simplification, yes; distortion, no.


Ewan

Re: Indigo Buddhism?

Holden said: “The act of interpreting is the very thing that keeps us from understanding the true nature of mind, self and other.”

I can understand that Holden and Bjorn subscribe to this interpretation, even though they seem convinced it is not an interpretation. To me it's the myth of the given that Ken talks about. And it is precisely my point, that such interpretations of “state” experiences are outdated and in need ot transcendence in postformal cognition. We'll just have to resepctfully (hopefully) disagree on that.

And by the way, I meditate and have such experiences too, I just don't interpret them that way. I'm sure one can find a denigrating kosmic address for me due to that.

To change to topic, what is the center of gravity? I think this is important because some above have claimed that while the originators of Buddhism were turquoise cognition their COG was lower. And if the COG is cognition and the self-related lines then I'd suggest by certain criteria the originators were postformal, then how did they display such ethnocentric behavior? And how is Ken's CPS now the new COG?

Re: Indigo Buddhism?

“I can understand that Holden and Bjorn subscribe to this interpretation, even though they seem convinced it is not an interpretation. To me it's the myth of the given that Ken talks about.”

This I don't understand. People throw around the term “Myth of the Given,” a lot around here, and I want to make sure that we're all on the same page. From what I understand from Pelle, the myth of the given is to believe that what you see and conceive from a certain stage is a direct perception of reality. That a rock is a rock, etc… That is not close to what I'm talking about, nor is it was the Buddhist sages are talking about. To fall prey to this myth, one must assume that reality and the objects of awareness are something solid, something in particular, with particular and inherent characteristics of being, which is far from what I have expressed.
What I'm talking about is like the Heisenberg uncertainty principle. That is you can either know the position or the velocity of an electron, but you cannot know both at the same time.
Like this you can interpret what you experience and label it via your stage of consciousness and your relative knowledge, but to do so you have to divide up the whole into parts for measurement. You can directly perceive reality, but to do so is to see only the whole, and not interpret it with concepts and relative knowledge.
The reason this isn't an interpretation is because I'm not interpreting direct experience. I have no explanation. I have no idea about what This is. I have no way to explain this present moment or direct experience, yet there is experience. My explanation for This may change over time, but my experience of this is constant. All my life there has only ever been This. This awareness hasn't changed over time, and it is the only thing that hasn't. This isn't merely a relative interpretation, because it is the same for you and everyone else.
Therefore there is not Myth of the Given in this awareness, because nothing is Given.
A rock is not just a rock, yet it is not more than a rock. This is seeing before seeing, or perceiving before conceiving.
In mathematics relative knowledge is like real numbers, or the What of experience. This is the same kind of cognition that a computer has. Yet a computer can't tell the difference between a dog and a cat, something a bird can do. This awareness can be represented with the imaginary numbers i. Together the two help explain in relative terms what we experience r + i; r for relative truth.
Now you may accuse me of relative explanation and interpretation, but it is for you benefit.
There's an ancient Zen saying that describes this:

Say “barrier” and two appears.
See “barrier” and two cannot be found.

This is spoken from a Non-dual mind.
What's crazy about KW's theory is that it explains that we can literally not understand the next higher stage of consciousness until out consciousness unfolds to incorporate more of the Whole. The theory itself states the futility of even trying to theorize about these states or imagining what they are like, and tells us that the only way we will know is to know directly.
I am in full agreement with KW on this, yet the people that follow what he says the most seem to completely ignore his main points.
If I hold a pebble in one hand and ask you to choose which one it is in, you will never be certain until I just open my hands and then you will know. Before that happens, the futility of debate and conjecture over what hand the pebble is in seems like a waste of energy.

Also, if you think that you are experiencing anything in particular during meditation, that is your mind. If you think that you have seen or learned or experienced anything different during meditation this is also mind made.

Re: Indigo Buddhism?

For example in IS (draft) Ken says (I'll add comments later):

“There are two theories available that attempt to explain this, and AQAL uses them both.

One theory, accepted by most developmentalists, is that the basic yardstick is the cognitive line, because, alone of all the lines, there does seem to be a mechanism relating it to the others. Namely, research has continued to demonstrate that growth in the cognitive line is necessary but not sufficient for the growth in the other lines. Thus, you can be highly developed in the cognitive line and poorly developed in the moral line (very smart but not very moral: Nazi doctors), but we don't find the reverse (low IQ, highly moral). This is why you can have formal operational cognition and red values, but not preoperational cognition and orange values (again, something that cannot be explained if Spiral Dynamics vMEMEs were the only levels). So in this view, the altitude is the cognitive line, which is necessary but not sufficient for the other lines. The other lines are not variations on the cognitive, but they are dependent on it.

in the posted excerpts from volume 2) is that the y-axis is consciousness per se. Thus, “degree of consciousness” is itself is the altitude: the more consciousness, the higher the altitude (subconscious to self-conscious to superconscious). In this view, all of the developmental lines move through the same altitude gradient-and that gradient is consciousness, which is the y-axis, or the “height” of any of the lines on the psychograph. So a level can be said to be “higher” in any line the greater the degree of consciousness in it.

“ This happens to fit nicely with the Madhyamaka-Yogachara Buddhist view of

consciousness as emptiness or openness. Consciousness is not anything itself, just the degree of openness or emptiness, the clearing in which the phenomena of the various lines appear (but consciousness is not itself a phenomena-it is the space in which phenomena arise).” 

“ (There is one more theory, a third contender, that explains altitude, and that is the theory

of basic structures, also known as ladder, climber, view, a theory offered by AQAL. Suffice it to say that it is something of a combination of both of the above, and can be used with both fruitfully in the AQAL system. There is no need to pursue this theory in any detail, since its major points don't alter this discussion. Interested readers can follow up the references and the article “Ladder, Climber, View” posted on kenwilber.com.)

 ” Likewise with “consciousness” when used in this fashion. It is not a thing or a content or

a phenomenon. It has no description. It is not worldviews, it is not values, it is not morals, not cognition, not value-MEMEs, mathematico-logico structures, adaptive intelligences, nor multiple intelligences. In particular, consciousness is not itself a line among other lines, but the space in which lines arise. Consciousness is the emptiness, the openness, the clearing in which various phenomena arise, and if those phenomena develop in stages, they constitute a developmental line (cognitive, moral, self, values, needs, memes, etc.). The more phenomena in that line that can arise in consciousness, the higher the level in that line. Again, consciousness itself is not a phenomenon, but the space in which phenomena arise.” (84-6)

Re: Indigo Buddhism?

Holden,

What you describe sounds similar to Ken's description of CPS, no?

Re: Indigo Buddhism?

Here are a few more excepts from IS (draft) to take into consideration, pp. 134-6:

 

Those individuals who assume otherwise are simply assuming a premodernist epistemology, that there is a single pregiven reality that I can know, and that meditation will show me this independently existing reality, which therefore must be the same for everybody who discovers it; instead of realizing that the subject of knowing co-creates the reality it knows, and that therefore some aspects of reality will literally be created by the subject and the interpretation it gives to that reality.*

* Emptiness itself is not created or co-created, but Form is, and Emptiness is co-emergent with Form, therefore Nondual realization is in part interpretive.

And Brown's work is an example of what we are talking about here, namely, there isn't

just meditative experience per se-that simply does not exist. There is meditative experience

plus the interpretations you give it. And this means, among other things, that we should choose our interpretations, view, and framework very carefully. Traleg Rinpoche:

In the Buddha's early discourses on the Four Noble Truths, the Noble Eightfold

Path begins with the cultivation of the correct view…. Without a conceptual framework,

meditative experiences would be totally incomprehensible. What we experience in

meditation has to be properly interpreted, and its significance-or lack thereof-has to be

understood. This interpretative act requires appropriate conceptual categories and the

correct use of those categories. While we are often told that meditation is about emptying the mind, that it is the discursive, agitated thoughts of our mind that keeps us trapped in false appearances, meditative experiences are in fact impossible without the use of conceptual formulations.

As for the typical modern Western Buddhist that Traleg is criticizing, who so often sees

Buddhism as a “no concepts” and “no intellect” stance, it is unfortunately true that, among other things, this anti-intellectualism has often turned Buddhism into a type of “feelings only” school. Cognition is the great dirty word for these individuals. “That's too cognitive” means “that is not spiritual.” In reality, it's almost exactly the opposite, as Traleg is indicating. In that regard, notice that “cognition” is actually derived from the root gni (co-gni-tion), and this gni is the same as gno, which is the same root as gno-sis, or gnosis. Thus, cognition is really co-gnosis, or that which is the co-element of gnosis and nondual awareness. This why Traleg is saying that cognition or co-gnosis is indeed the vehicle of our spiritual path. (Incidentally, this is why, as we saw, developmentalists repeatedly have found that the cognitive line is necessary but not sufficient for ALL of the other developmental lines, including feelings, emotions, art, andspiritual intelligence-exactly the opposite you would expect if the anti-intellectualist and anticognitive stance was right.*)

In Sanskrit, this gno appears as jna, which we find in both prajna and jnana. Prajna is

supreme discriminating awareness necessary for full awakening of gnosis (pra-jna = pro-gnosis), itself a boomeritis twist on cittamatra. and jnana is pure gnosis itself. Once again, cognition as co-gnosis is the root of the development that is necessary for the full awakening of gnosis, of jnana, of nondual liberating awareness. So the next time you hear the word “cognitive,” you might hesitate before labeling it anti-spiritual.

Re: Indigo Buddhism?

“Holden,

What you describe sounds similar to Ken's description of CPS, no?”

Yeah, KW of course is taking it to the next logical level, and since he is more knowledgable and more developed than I am in many ways, I'll have to defer to him. He likes to push the envelope more than I personally would.
Emptiness could be said to be the space in which form or matter take place, and that's the way he always describes it, but that's not exactly what I was saying. Emptiness is a description of the quality of reality of form and self. Since all things are not inherently existent, that is they are dependent upon conditions. We have to steer clear of calling them causal factors, because all of these conditions are themselves, equally made up of conditions. This is true of all form, “all the way up and all the way down.” So there's never a place to gain solid footing and say that there is something in particular, that there is only this emptiness that defines the nature of all things. You can say that emptiness is the space in which form takes place, but that might confuse some people by making them  think that emptiness is somehow the base for or the space around which form happens, when it is really the quality of form itself. There are not two things going on like a Marxist model whereby the infrastructure is what houses the structure and superstructure.
That's the way I used to think of it years ago.

I really like what KW has to say about the co-creation of consciousness and form, I haven't heard him write anything like that before.

Re: Indigo Buddhism?

Thanks Holden. Actually we are in agreement about the nature of emptiness. And I am questioning Ken's description because as you noted it seems to set up a reified and dual emptiness that “is somehow the base for or the space around which form happens, when it is really the quality of form itself.”

So what I'm trying to understand, given that emptiness is not a “direct perception” opposed to an “interpretation,” is how, in Ken's statements above, he can still separate emptiness and form by saying: “Emptiness itself is not created or co-created, but Form is, and Emptiness is co-emergent with Form, therefore Nondual realization is in part interpretive.” Since the former is the quality of form itself it seems that relative form with its interpretative perspectives is accurate. As as form evolves it makes sense to me that there are more developed perspectives, hence legitimacy to altitude in the various lines. Thus it also makes sense to me to use cognition and the self-related lines (and ladder, climber, view) as some sort of COG. I can even see Ken's use of CPS as a sort of general altitude marker by not only the amount of, but by the type of, phenomenon that arise in a given line. But CPS as itself as some kind of measure seems to fall prey to the dual and reified emptiness above.

Also see this link for an extended discussion.

Re: Indigo Buddhism?

And also this link that explores the dual-nondual nonduality topic, with brief excerpt below.
 

From wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ken_Wilber

Others, including Georg Feuerstein, argue that Wilber's Neo-perennial Philosophy is a confusion between concepts of differentiated nondualist doctrines (such as Plotinus's neo-Platonism and Ramanuja's Vishishtadvaita Vedanta) and truly unitary monism of Zen and Advaita Vedanta: the former philosophies distinguish between emanated or manifest reality and the unchangeable source, while for Zen or Advaita the Source and reality are essentially one and the same. This is expressed in a famous Zen saying of which Wilber is quite fond: “Nirvana is Samsara fully realized; Samsara is Nirvana rightly understood.”[citation needed]

Wilber's response to criticisms like this is typified in this quotation from the extended audio interview Speaking of Everything: “…when I lay out the stages of development, I am giving what I explicitly called in SES a ‘rational reconstruction of the trans-rational'.[12] Thus, differentiated non-dual doctrines and truly unitary monist doctrines are describing (or coming from) different levels of consciousness, the former from a causal perspective that differentiates between emptiness and form (and hence must see form as emanationary), and the latter from a nondual perspective that equates emptiness and form (and hence renders emanation a redundant concept).

Re: Indigo Buddhism?

So what I'm trying to understand, given that emptiness is not a “direct perception” opposed to an “interpretation,” is how, in Ken's statements above, he can still separate emptiness and form by saying: “Emptiness itself is not created or co-created, but Form is, ….

Therefore, Sariputra, in emptiness there is no form, nor feeling, nor perception, nor impulse, nor consciousness, (nor rules, nor formal,  nor-vision logic, etc.>>>)

In emptiness there are no Zone 1 or Zone 2 designations. Form is evolving but not *in* emptiness. When the traditions use space to describe emptiness it is done as metaphor. Emptiness is like space in that everything arising and changing in space does not effect space. To reify emptiness to space is ultimately a hindrance to understanding emptiness.




…and Emptiness is co-emergent with Form, therefore Nondual realization is in part interpretive.”

Here, Sariputra, form is emptiness and the very emptiness is form; emptiness does not differ from form, form does not differ from emptiness; whatever is form, that is emptiness, whatever is emptiness, that is form, the same is true of feelings, perceptions, impulses and consciousness and ( rules,  formal,  vision logic, etc.>>>)

Non-dual realization is interpretive in the sense of expression thru evolving form in time is empty. The fact of Emptiness allows for Form to evolve and change. Emptiness is not changing but form is because it is none other then emptiness after all. If Form was not empty, it would not and could not change.




Since the former is the quality of form itself it seems that relative form with its interpretative perspectives is accurate.

To say Emptiness is a quality of form is a bit misleading also. As there is not a thing e.g. form that inherently exists with a quality of emptiness. Form is Emptiness and Emptiness is Form!




…. But CPS as itself as some kind of measure seems to fall prey to the dual and reified emptiness above.


The bolded text above are 2 deepening realizations.  The realization of Emptiness (sans evolving Form e.g causal ) and the realization that Emptiness is Form (e.g. non-dual).

peace & love,

e

Re: Indigo Buddhism?

theurj,

I see what your saying. I've thought the same thing myself and questioned KW's seemingly incongruous statements about the nature of form and emptiness.
I agree with what e says 100% as well. Although he is right when he says that to say the quality of form is emptiness isn't quite right, is also right; even though I'm the one who said that.
But, again we can't forget that we are talking about two truths, the conventional and the absolute. There is existence and there are phenomena and they are empty of inherent characteristics and therefore that is the only absolute quality to describe them in a conventional sense. So it's a yes and no situation. After all, we are trying to rationally discuss the trans-rational.
Also I think what KW is saying about co-creation is the effect of consciousness itself. We can't say that reality or the world out there exists apart from consciousness. Consciousness is that which brakes up the whole into parts, and that act of measurement affects not just the present moment, but every moment that has ever been.
Listen to the cosmologist Davies, from the thread, “An interview cosmologist Paul Davies,” here:  http://pods.zaadz.com/ii/discussions/view/148770
And to quote people smarter than I am:
Mathematician John Von Neumann, “From a strictly logical point of view, only the presence of consciousness can solve the measurement problem… …the world is not objectively real but depends on the mind of the observer.”

Physicist J.S. Bell, [paraphrase and quote] “the most simple and natural… [way] in which quantum mechanics can be presented is called… 'wave mechanics.' [That is waves of water are the surface oscillations of water, sound waves are the pressure of air oscillating. With light we are a little vague about what's waving] …and even about whether the question made sense. In the case of the waves of wave mechanics we have no idea of what is waving… …and do not ask the question.”

Physicist Nick Herbert, “New quantum facts destroy the once sharp distinction between matter and field. With two magic quantum phrases we can… [turn] matter into field and vice versa. It's beginning to look as if everything is made of one substance- call it 'quantumstuff'- which combines particle and wave at once in a peculiar quantum style all its own.
The world is one substance. As satisfying as this discovery may be to philosophers, it is profoundly distressing to physicists as long as they do not understand the nature of that substance. For if quantumstuff is all there is and you don't understand quantumsruff, you ignorance is complete.”

Then my hero, Zen priest, Steve Hagen:

“For those of us who agree with the definition that the mind is what the brain does, consider how the brain is made of atoms made of subatomic particles made of … what? Motion? Energy? And what are motion and energy made of? What is the material world?
One of the central problems in quantum physics today is how it is possible for an arrangement of atoms to support consciousness (that is, constitute a measuring device).  But why the foregone conclusion? Does it make any sense that consciousness is constituted of atoms at all? According to scientists, the world remains in a state of superimposed possibilities until a measurement is made, thus determining which possibility is actual. The act of taking a measurement collapses a potential into an actual. [Paul Davies also notes this is true not just in the preset moment, but the act also affects all past events] And what is the act of taking a measurement? It's not simply taking your ruler out… …it's conception itself. As we shall see, measurement is an alteration within consciousness–an alteration which opens the door to uncertainty and probability.
What is known as “measurement” is a function of consciousness which collapses perceived Reality into conceived reality, into objects (concepts) in the mind.
We can devise a theory of everything and say, “This is Reality,” “This is Truth.” Or we may even say, “Mind is moving–that's the Truth, believe it.” But our explanations don't cut it. It's only consciousness itself which cuts Reality–literally…”

This last statement by Hagen, is what I was trying to say in the Susan Blackmore thread about Psi to Grey. When we assume that matter is antecedent to consciousness then psi phenomenon is… well… psi phenomenon. But, when we see that consciousness is antecedent to matter, then there's no mystery. Also what I think KW is getting at.

Re: Indigo Buddhism?

When we assume that matter is antecedent to consciousness then psi phenomenon is… well… psi phenomenon. But, when we see that consciousness is antecedent to matter, then there's no mystery.

Its worth noting that the Whitehead-ian aspect of AQAL says that for every exterior, there's an interior (consciousness or prehension). So its not just human consciousness that collapses a potential into an actual, but any time an interior “sees” a potential. And that interior could be held in a molecule, an atom, a photon, etc. But saying that consciousness collapses the potential is very different from saying that your intention collapses the potential, and your cat doesn't turn into “potential” when you turn around because all the other “consciousnesses” in the room can still see it.

So to me, this aspect of AQAL is incompatible with any attempt reduce psi to quantum effects. Secondly, in the AQAL model, interiors and exteriors co-arise, so neither mind nor matter are antecedent to the other.

Re: Indigo Buddhism?

It isn't human consciousness per say, but Awareness itself. Awareness is a part of the Whole, but awareness becomes aware of the Whole and the first thing it does is to split the Whole in various parts.
The act of intention is the act of taking a measurement, that this what collapses the potential.
Scientists have yet to find any evidence that our everyday world behaves any differently from the world of quantum reality. As physicist Henry Stapp points out, “the ontology extends in an unbroken way from the microscopic to the macroscopic.
Though we can't confirm through our consciousness that an external, objectively real world exists, after all we have no direct experience of experience without experience, that is, conscious awareness; direct experience does confirm consciousness itself, i.e., perception that this is going on. It's from this perspective that I am arguing for the primacy of consciousness over matter.
To say otherwise is to imagine a time that precedes “our consciousness.” But this is just a concept. No such time is actually given to direct experience, that is, no such a time is available to perception, either to me or anyone that has ever lived. We all lack any direct experience of a time outside of actual Consciousness. No one can vouch for a time when Consciousness was not present; before their birth or while they are sleeping and not dreaming. No one is ever conscious of not being conscious, and to be conscious of not being conscious is to be conscious.
When seen this way there is no need to explain direct experience or the evolution of awareness. Of course, this is incomprehensible, however it also eliminates all of the paradox that we encounter when seeing the world any other way.
Conscious can then be seen to be that which divides what is otherwise a seamless Whole. It is the function of consciousness to divide subject from object.
If we are all saying that reality is a seamless Whole that we divide up as a function of our consciousness, and that moving up the Spiral is seeing the world in more of a Whole and less of a thing built upon a bunch of parts, then logically certain things are assumed.
For starters, we must assume that, since consciousness is obviously present in all experience (if it weren't then there would be no experience to have), this seamless Wholeness, in that it is unitary, would not merely have to contain consciousness, but would actually be consciousness. In other words, if Reality were a seamless Whole, that Wholeness is necessarily Consciousness, i.e., it is what is necessarily what is immediate and Self-evident.  If all isn't a seamless Whole then everything that KW and everyone hear talk about don't make sense. Otherwise, for example, the objects of our awareness are actually something. We can't have it both ways and avoid paradox.
It is tantamount to believing that a thing can both persist through time and also change. One has to be wrong. They are mutually exclusive paradigms.
The dynamic attributes of quantum objects arise only within the quantum object's “measurement context,” which links the object to the rest of the universe, including any observer or measuring device. So a quantum object's dynamic attributes, that is position or momentum, are contextual. They will exhibit different attributes depending on how you measure them. These attributes are jointly shared by the object and the measuring device; which is consciousness.
Take away the measuring device and the object no longer possess these attributes, i.e., the photon isn't anywhere and has no motion or lack of motion when no one is looking. The physicist Nick Herbert talks about this in detail in Quantum Reality, ”We cannot picture such a state of being, but nature seems to have no trouble producing such entities. Indeed, such entities are all this world is made of.”
But then we can't picture it and that's the point. It's not registering in consciousness, it's not being conceived; nevertheless, we perceive.
Herbert also points out that John Von Neumann, the great mathematician, showed that if we “…assume that electrons or photons are ordinary objects or are constructed of ordinary objects–entities with innate dynamic attributes–then the behavior of these objects must contradict the predictions of quantum theory.”
But quantum theory is the most successful theory within science. So quantum object don't behave like ordinary objects, yet ordinary objects are made of nothing but quantum objects. As has been stated, no one has been able to prove that the two act the exact same way.
So we start form this understand, and we know that experiments, the most successful in science, that things like photons behave differently depending upon whether they are measured. That is they are waves, yet when observed become particles. That this is so even if the object of measure is a photon detector. Not only that, but when we observe something that has taken place in the past, like star light millions of years old, it behaves differently in the past when it is observed in the present. That is, quantum objects exibit awareness. This can only be so if consciousness is antecedent to matter.
While you right that conception can't take place without matter, and that matter and concept co-arise, Awareness itself is absolute, unborn, unceasing, unchanging, and undying. It is not dependent or affected by any change in the flux that we call form.
So the act of measuring, i.e., obverving a random number generator can have the effect of changing its results, which is one of the things listed by Grey for the evidence of psi phenomena.

Re: Indigo Buddhism?

The following paper, though long and a little dense, has several sections in it that may be relevant to this discussion – particularly his exploration in terms of the phenomenon of being, the different types of emptiness in Buddhism, his discussion of “meta-phenomenology” and “meta-ontology,” etc.

http://eliascapriles.dzogchen.ru/bmh1.pdf

I have been distracted recently by some developments that are occupying my time and attention, but I hope to return to this discussion and contribute more soon.

Best wishes,

Bruce

Re: Indigo Buddhism?

I really like what KW has to say about the co-creation of consciousness and form, I haven't heard him write anything like that before.

This is a mystery that baffles the mind. Huang-Po speaks of it as “Emptiness being co-extensive with the Void”.

I see it like this: Emptiness “follows” and “fills” the Void upon its expansion. The manifest Universe (=space and all things in it) that is constantly expanding due to the initial burst at the big bang, its velocity being deemed as time, and its expansion as space.

Huang-Po, I believe, means with the “Void” all space that the Universe consists of and all things contained within it. “Form” is both our Universal space and its content.

So when “form” expands (the constant expansion of the Universe) it is followed closely (exactly) by its underlying Emptiness.

So Consciousness follows closely the creation of form. This is our everyday experience all the time.

This is so beautiful. Huang-Po was the first one that was able to describe this to me. Is there any other references to this mystery that predates him? Did the Buddha point to this?

Re: Indigo Buddhism?

The act of intention is the act of taking a measurement, that this what collapses the potential.

But this is a minority interpretation of quantum behavior. I'm suggesting that the AQAL model can unify this model with the mainstream model by saying that interiority, not intention, collapses the potential. Actually Whitehead ascribed intentionality to interiority, even atoms, but mainly because he had a committment to a personal, intentional god. If we take the Buddhist understanding of nondual reality as non-intentional, Whitehead's metaphysics, and both conventional and unconventional quantum interpretations, it fits together really well. Now, the quantum psi people really don't care about nonduality and don't care about Whitehead, and their model is only plausible and coherent if you exclude those two things.

Re: Indigo Buddhism?

It's great to hear all this talk about emptiness, but I'm also interested in the original question, “What is indigo Buddhism?” I may have missed the answer somewhere, but I know that the answer would involve more than a discussion of emptiness. The stage realization of a person involves what they do once they're off of the meditation cushion, what they say and do, and there's acting from emptiness at amber, orange, etc. In early Buddhism the thing to do was just get off the wheel, escape to nirvikilpaka. Later there was the addition of compassionate action and the boddhisatva vow. Saintly commitment and bodhisatvic compasion occur in third tier in Ken's chart on page 212 of Integral Psychology, so that sort of thing would definitely be a part of indigo Buddhism, but is there anything else? An understanding and appreciation of evolution in addition to or as a refinement of compassionate action for all sentient beings would also seem to be essential.

Re: Indigo Buddhism?

Yes, the tangent into emptiness serves part of the overall purpose of exploring indigo Buddhism in that one of my questions is: How would traditional Buddhist doctrine on key issues look different at indigo? This applies whether it was orginated at a lower level or even if it was originated at indigo. In the latter case, even if the first inklings of indigo were being laid down, that would certainly have developed by now and would look differently within our western cultural matrix. One point was that if we interpret is exactly the same then that is an indication that we're not moving forward. Another point is that even in that traditional interpretation there are different perspectives, some more complete than others.

So I'm still curious to hear how Buddhism might be less than 2nd-tier in some respects, how indigo in others, and how we can develop both within our postmodern milieu. Also another issue related to this is the notion of center of gravity (COG), as it seems one can be cognitively at indigo but not their COG. If COG has to do with cognition first (as being necessary but not sufficient) and the self-related lines (what are they exactly, besides ego development?), then how does a notion of CPS (or emptiness per above) act as a measure of anything? To “measure” indigo (or any level) is certainly at issue here, as without a kosmic address indigo anything is meaningless.

Re: Indigo Buddhism?

Thanks for the link Balder. I had come across this book* in previous research but have yet had the time to read it in its entirety.

Here are a couple relevant quotes though regarding this discussion on the subtopic of the immediacy of experience:
 

“The use of the term metaphenomenology is due to the fact that, although the

phenomenological epoche is an essential aspect of the method of inquiry at the root of this book, Jacques Derrida was quite right in noting that phenomenology is no more than a [crypto]metaphysics,a and that the phenomenological emphasis on the immediacy of experience is a new illusion… (22).”

“Sartre's thesis that consciousness is made possible by an underlying nondual awareness could not be rooted in the bare manifestation of that awareness upon the dissolution of dualistic consciousness, for he does not contemplate this possibility; therefore, his thesis seems to be a metaphysical position (which as such is subject to Derrida's assertion that phenomenology is a [crypto]metaphysics). The Dzogchen teachings, instead, posit an underlying awareness because Dzogchen practitioners have had the direct realization of this nondual awareness when dualistic consciousness dissolves in nirvana, and then have experienced how in the same nondual awareness dualistic consciousness arises when samsara is reestablished. Thus in the case of the Dzogchen teachings, nondual awareness is not a metaphysical postulate, but a finding rooted in the (meta)phenomenological hermeneutics of the experiences of samsara, nirvana and the base-of-all (245).”

The author also goes into an extended critique of Wilber in Chapters 8 and 9, which I have yet had time to read. For now here's a taste of his overall approach on “states”:

“ With regard to the book's subtitles, the term metatranspersonal implicitly rebukes

transpersonal psychology (within which I include Ken Wilber's “integral” psychology) for overlooking the fact that there are samsaric transpersonal states, transpersonal states that are neither samsaric nor nirvanic, and nirvanic transpersonal states-and that only nirvana may constitute the ultimate aim of psychological and spiritual therapy (xxi).”

I think this book might also contain some clarifications on the issue of this thread, indigo Buddhism. It might be a worthwhile endeavor to read this book together collectively and discuss it on its own thread?

* “Beyond being, beyond mind, beyond history” by Capriles-Arias

Re: Indigo Buddhism?

Hi, Theurj,

Yes, I was just reading volume 3 of that book this morning (at work! don't tell!), particularly the section where he discusses Derrida and the various comparisons to Nagarjuna that have been made.  I have read previous books by Capriles and know that he has issues with some of Wilber's formulations.  In this most recent book, Beyond Being, Beyond Mind, Beyond History, I think he's doing something important – he is tackling the important turns in modern Western philosophical history (Sartre, Heidegger, Hume, Nietzche, Derrida, etc.) and comparing them to Dzogchen thought.  He does remain pretty close to Dzogchen teaching, since it is clear that he thinks it surpasses these other movements in important ways, and yet he also appears to be putting forward new formulations which take account of some of the unique contributions of these modern thinkers.

So, Yes.  I do think this book is perhaps one good place to start to get a sense of what a post-postmodern / Indigo Buddhism might look like.  I actually haven't read enough of the book yet to be able to evaluate the CoG of the vision presented in this book, beyond being at least second tier, but Capriles does seem like quite a bright fellow and he attempts to wrestle with contemporary issues and findings.  

I plan on reading the book from front to back, instead of cherry picking in it as I've been doing, and will be happy to discuss it (on a new thread) with anyone else who is also interested in diving in.

Beyond Being, Beyond Mind, Beyond History

Best wishes,

Balder

Re: Indigo Buddhism?

Following is a quote from this book in reference to Derrida and Nagarjuna. He uses Loy’s analysis as his basis, and Loy quite frankly is wrong on this. Loy’s own Buddhist prejudice (as well as this author’s) color their lens to the point of not understanding Derrida’s differance.

“However, Derrida’s method is incomplete, for it deconstructs the principle of identity without destroying that of difference, and by maintaining the latter keeps us indefinitely in the realm of delusorily valued meanings, which as de Saussure made it clear are all based on difference: as David Loy has noted, Derrida “remains in the halfway-house of proliferating ‘pure textuality’;” he remains stuck in language with its ineluctable duality (205).”

Contrast this with what Braitstein said (and that I quoted at http://www.openintegral.net/blog/?p=107):

“To hold emptiness as a view - to reify it or think of it as the essence of things - is to misunderstand it entirely. As the goal of the MMK is to show how absurd it is to hold any view whatsoever, one may with confidence conflate sunyata with Nagarjuna’s position. Therefore, whoever takes Nagarjuna’s work as proposing a view has done something wrong. Derrida writes with more words and less drama:

“What differs? Who differs? What is différance? If we answered these questions before examining them as questions, before turning them back on themselves, and before suspecting their very form, including what seems most natural and necessary about them, we would immediately fall back into what we just disengaged ourselves from. In effect, if we accepted the form of the question, in its meaning and its syntax (“what is?” “who is?” “who is it that?”), we would have to conclude that différance has been derived, has happened, is to be mastered and governed on the basis of the point a present being…a what, or a present being as a subject, a who.” (Derrida 14-15)

“In other words, asking questions of différance as though it were a concept or view like any other, immediately situates the query in precisely the conceptual context différance is meant to undermine. Put simply, “différance,” writes Derrida, “is not” (Derrida 21); “It governs nothing, reigns over nothing, and nowhere exercises any authority” (Derrida 22)[i][v] .”

But this is a topic for another thread. Just showing one point on how this source might not be representing the “opposition” accurately.

Re: Indigo Buddhism?

Perhaps we can discuss this issue on another thread, but I don't think Braitstein has the final word either.  There are a number of meanings of emptiness in Buddhism – you might even say, a number of Kosmic addresses from which emptiness is apprehended and understood.  In Tibetan tradition, the analytical emptiness of the sutra and lower tantra traditions (and of Derrida, I would argue) is quite different from the non-analytical, nonconceptual emptiness of the higher yoga tantras. 

I admit that I am not yet very familiar with Derrida – thanks to you, I've been reading more of him; I had read On Grammatology earlier this year, but was not “captured” by it – but I think Loy's argument has merit to it.  Have you read Loy's essays, or just Capriles' summary?  Loy carefully analyzes how the Madhyamika use of causality to deconstruct things ends up ultimately deconstructing causality, and points out that Derrida does not seem to have grasped the necessity (or inevitability) of such a “double-deconstruction.”   Also, as Capriles points out (paraphrasing Loy), “since Derrida's deconstruction ends up with difference, it

necessarily initiates a new swing of the pendulum of dualistic conceptualization requiring

yet another deconstruction effort.”  And this does seem to be the end product of deconstruction: a self-perpetuating exercise, and actually a parasitic existence.

Best wishes,

B.

P.S. With that said, I do not want to give the impression that I unreservedly endorse what Capriles is saying.  I think he is presenting an interesting, challenging viewpoint that is worth considering, but it runs counter to a number of prominent ideas in Integral, and he also appears to have a fear of impending ecological doom that is stronger than I think is warranted.

Re: Indigo Buddhism?

Yes, I've not only read all of Loy's articles on Derrida and Buddhism but have also had personal email discussion with Loy. And he's wrong, plain and simple. IMO.

Re: Indigo Buddhism?

Do you think that Derrida's deconstruction leads to the same freedom that is the aim of Buddhism?

Wilber cautions against confusing Derrida and the Dharma in one of his recent talks … though I understand that you are arguing that Wilber misunderstands Derrida.

Re: Indigo Buddhism?

Honestly I’m not an expert on either Derrida or Buddhism, so I cannot answer that question with any authority. But in my study of authorities on both, and of Wilber, I can tell you that Ken is so off the mark about Derrida that it makes me question a lot of his other pronouncements.

And while Derrida might have similarities with certain brands of Buddhism there are also distinct differences, so I don’t think that we can generalize that he’s saying the “same” thing with the same aims. So in that sense I wouldn’t claim to “confuse” him with the dharma. However to the aim of this thread I’d say that by comparing and contrasting such perspectives we might create a more inclusive and comprehensive (integral) perspective than one that dismisses Derrida with an errant kosmic address.

Re: Indigo Buddhism?

I totally agree with that.  I think that's a good approach to take.

Just a few minutes ago, I dug a book out of my boxes to review in relation to this discussion.  Reasoning Into Reality, by Peter Fenner.  I started thinking that it might represent another good resource when thinking about the “shape” of modern Buddhism.  In this book, he attempts a systems-cybernetics approach to Madhyamika analysis, with the aim of delivering a “program” of analysis that can be useful in therapy.  In particular, he explores a number of analytical techniques used in Madhyamika meditation, and shows how the “movements” of this analysis can be charted with a software program he developed.

I will return to this after I've reviewed the book again.  (I read it probably six or seven years ago).  What I believe will be interesting, in this sub-conversation we're having, is the apparently strikingly different aims of Madhyamika meditation from standard postmodern deconstruction.  For instance, there are methods for generating certain thoughts, building them to the appropriate cathartic charge, and then attempting to hold them simultaneously with equally cathartically charged negations, such that the thoughts cancel each other and open onto clear, bright awareness.  The deconstruction of thought structures and polarities is used in the service of this nonconceptual realization, which is apparently quite a different aim from Derrida's deconstructive analysis of texts…

Best wishes,

Bruce

Re: Derrida sub-text

David Loy opened his 1987 essay “The Cloture of Deconstruction”* with the following quote:

 “Derrida's radical critique of Western philosophy is defective only because it is not radical enough. His deconstruction is incomplete because it does not deconstruct itself and attain clôture: that much-sought clôture of metaphysical thinking which would also be the opening to something else. This is why Derrida remains in the halfway-house of proliferating “pure textuality,” whereas deconstruction could lead to a transformed mode of experiencing the world.”

I contend, via Derrida's own works, and those that understood him (like Caputo), that Derrida did indeed go beyond the “halfway-house..of pure textuality” to “a transformed mode of experiencing the world.” In that sense he achieved one of the same goals as Buddhism, only within his own specific cultural milieu within its own AQAL matrix. So while it is the same it is also different. Or as we used to say in the coal-mining community where I was contextualized: “same difference.”

*http://ccbs.ntu.edu.tw/FULLTEXT/JR-AN/33315.htm

Re: Derrida sub-text

I won't be disappointed if that's true.  I haven't seen any writings that would lead me to that conclusion yet, but I'm still a neophyte when it comes to Da.

Re: Indigo Buddhism?

theurj,

I like where your going with this. It does beg the question doesn't it? If this Awareness, as I've gone into in length in the last post, is ever present throughout, and is not effected or changed at any point of development, not just of humans, but anything really, how do we measure stages? Of more precisely, what measures stage development and how are COG and CPS logically compatible as concepts.
I think, we have to see CPS as the original state of being, where as COG and state development is a being developing back to an original state. Like building a building by tearing it down.
Again, I think Steve Hagen says it better than most:

This is how consciousness works: an awareness erupts out of the Whole, thus splitting that Whole; and the first thing that gets split off is: Here I am, over here–that is, Consciousness conceives, along with its object, a subject. It conceives a self. Furthermore, it conceives a self which necessarily sees itself as being opposed to everything else. In other words, Consciousness spontaneously creates a bogus self-consciousness.
Consciousness creates another which is set apart from me. Thus does the fragmentary, particularistic, commonsense point of view emerge from what is otherwise a seamless, boundless Whole. This, then, is the emergence of fragmentary consciousness, the origin of the fragmented mind which, in seeing itself opposed to "other," enters into perpetual conflict as it attempts ot maintain that which cannot be found in Reality–a self.
[Consciousness then continues this is rapid succession, and we can think of this as a kind of big bang for the creation of self, yet at every level the things created in this big bang remain empty of their own being.]

As per my last post, and most Buddhist text, it seems logically ridiculous that all of this happened at a discernible point in time, and it can be said that this has always been, at least for you. Since there is only really one awareness, that is, your awareness and mine and everyone else's is the exact same, so in an absolute sense we are the same. Because, how can there be two things that are identical and still be two?  So then what is different? What exactly defines your memories and thoughts as opposed to mine? The answer it seems in Karma or the conditioning that has happened since this “original sin” as it were, or the big bang of self from the birth of awareness.
As far as reconciling this, This aspect of bare awareness (CPS) and the What aspect of relative and conventional form concepts (COG), would prove to be impossible I think. It is like trying to solve the equation: r + i. When r is a flux and i remains undefined. Any answer would not quite ever be the answer, and yet here we are.
This is completely ungraspable, but that is the way it seems to be.

Re: Indigo Buddhism?

Holden, what do you think of this?

This is a mystery that baffles the mind. Huang-Po speaks of it as “Emptiness being co-extensive with the Void”.

I would really like to take this further.

In regards to our Unity, since we always have had the same mind, the only divergent being to postulate an “I” and only paying attention to the individual, we clearly see that we exist as non-separate from each-other and expresses everything we do through the same agent; that is, our Absolute common Self. You express it all the time, the only fallacy being not recognizing our inherent non-duality. Once we act from knowing and recognizing our unity there is no self to adhere to. What is a self limiting idea hold no true substance and once seen through vanishes without leaving any trace. That is how ones personal name and history at once is erased; gone back onto itself, never to have been existing in the first place.

Personality still have a place, but seen in its true context; one self. One Mind, one body, one heart.

Re: Indigo Buddhism?

Bjorn: This is so beautiful. Huang-Po was the first one that was able to describe this to me. Is there any other references to this mystery that predates him? Did the Buddha point to this?

Here is one way the Buddha explained this. Here he is explaining the decent into emptiness via the cessation of conscious activity. Going from the gross to the causal (left to right in the lattice).

“'Your question should not be phrased in this way: Where do these four great elements - the earth property, the liquid property, the fire property, and the wind property - cease without remainder?

Instead, it should be phrased like this:

Where do water, earth, fire, & wind have no footing?

Where are long & short, coarse & fine, fair & foul, name & form brought to an end?

“'And the answer to that is:

Consciousness without feature, without end, luminous all around:

Here water, earth, fire, & wind have no footing.

Here long & short coarse & fine fair & foul name & form are all brought to an end.

With the cessation of [the activity of] consciousness each is here brought to an end.'”

—————

MrTeacup: Secondly, in the AQAL model, interiors and exteriors co-arise, so neither mind nor matter are antecedent to the other.

It seems they co-arise in the Gross & Subtle Realm only. See my post on the Lattice in this Discussion group.

David : In early Buddhism the thing to do was just get off the wheel, escape to nirvikilpaka. Later there was the addition of compassionate action and the boddhisatva vow.

This is simply not true. In early Buddhism the only one that could be called a Boddhisatva was the current Buddha. That is, they defined a Boddhisatva as the Buddha to be in an age where there was no Dharma. So from the early teaching's point of view, Boddhisatva just referenced Gautama Buddha in his previous lives when the prior Buddha's teachings had already disappeared. From the early teachings point of view, you cannot be a Boddhisatva unless there was no Buddhism anymore. The Bodhisatva re-discovers the dharma. Regarding compassion, in early Buddhism, the 4 Brahma Viharas were/are an essential part of the path!!

Holden : This aspect of bare awareness (CPS) and the What aspect of relative and conventional form concepts (COG), would prove to be impossible I think. It is like trying to solve the equation: r + i. When r is a flux and i remains undefined. Any answer would not quite ever be the answer, and yet here we are. This is completely ungraspable, but that is the way it seems to be.

Bjorn : This is a mystery that baffles the mind. Huang-Po speaks of it as “Emptiness being co-extensive with the Void”.
I see it like this: Emptiness “follows” and “fills” the Void upon its expansion. The manifest Universe (=space and all things in it) that is constantly expanding due to the initial burst at the big bang, its velocity being deemed as time, and its expansion as space.

Hey Holden & Bjorn,

Tibetan Buddhism has a way of explaining this in a crystal clear way. Mind has (at least) 2 aspects, infinite cognition and emptiness. These two aspects are not the same but they are not separate. The problem we have is with infinite cognition. Our awareness contracts and forms objects. Along with objects, a subject is apprehended where prior there was only emptiness i.e. I am over here and others/IT/Its are over there. Space now arises between the subject and object and there is now room for the two obscuring veils of thoughts and emotion to arise. Diagrammaticly it is like this:

Emptiness+Infinity

Subject(I)/Finite Object (Not I)

I<over here<(space between) > over there>Not I

I << veils of thought and emotion >> Not I

The process to re-cognize the true empty infinite nature of mind is the reverse process. That is, first calm the obscuring veils of thoughts and emotions. Unite I & Not I by removing the separate self sense (i.e. ego). Then drop the Mind\Body unity consciousness.

PS Bjorn, you may be conflating unity consciousness with emptiness realization. Most folks who realize emptiness dont talk about Oneness, etc.

peace & love,

e

Re: Indigo Buddhism?

Thanx for the Huang Po quote Bjorn, he is also the one that said, “The foolish reject what they see, not what they think; the wise reject what they think, not what they see.” The one Pelle is always saying is an example of the Myth of the Given. When in the context of everything else he says it is clear that he's talking about what it directly percieved before the act of conception. What one directly perceives of course is nothing in particular.
And e thanx for the clarity of the Tibetan view point. It is the same thing that I Hagen said in the post I posted above, but helps to clarify.
I would still say that this awareness within the Tibetan model is also still undefined and unexplained.
Also, to support your statement about early Buddhism, here is a statement about Theravada and Mahayana.

Mahayana and Theravada

Now, what is the difference between Mahayana and Theravada?

I have studied Mahayana for many years and the more I study it, the more I find there is hardly any difference between Theravada and Mahayana with regard to the fundamental teachings.

- Both accept Sakyamuni Buddha as the Teacher.
- The Four Noble Truths are exactly the same in both schools.
- The Eightfold Path is exactly the same in both schools.
- The Paticca-samuppada or the Dependent Origination is the same in both schools.
- Both rejected the idea of a supreme being who created and governed this world.
- Both accept Anicca, Dukkha, Anatta and Sila, Samadhi, Panna without any difference.

These are the most important teachings of the Buddha and they are all accepted by both schools without question.

There are also some points where they differ. An obvious one is the Bodhisattva ideal. Many people say that Mahayana is for the Bodhisattvahood which leads to Buddhahood while Theravada is for Arahantship. I must point out that the Buddha was also an Arahant. Pacceka Buddha is also an Arahant. A disciple can also be an Arahant. The Mahayana texts never use the term Arahant-yana, Arahant Vehicle. They used three terms: Bodhisattvayana, Prateka-Buddhayana, and Sravakayana. In the Theravada tradition these three are called Bodhis.

Some people imagine that Theravada is selfish because it teaches that people should seek their own salvation. But how can a selfish person gain Enlightenment? Both schools accept the three Yanas or Bodhis but consider the Bodhisattva ideal as the highest. The Mahayana has created many mystical Bodhisattvas while the Theravada considers a Bodhisattva as a man amongst us who devotes his entire life for the attainment of perfection, ultimately becoming a fully Enlightened Buddha for the welfare of the world, for the happiness of the world.

Three Types of Buddhahood

There are three types of Buddhahood: the Samma Sambuddha who gains full Enlightenment by his own effort, the Pacceka Buddha who has lesser qualities than the Samma Sambuddha, and the Savaka Buddha who is an Arahant disciple. The attainment of Nibbana between the three types of Buddhahood is exactly the same. The only difference is that the Samma Sambuddha has many more qualities and capacities than the other two.

Some people think that Voidness or Sunyata discussed by Nagarjuna is purely a Mahayana teaching. It is based on the idea of Anatta or non-self, on the Paticcasamuppada or the Dependent Origination, found in the original Theravada Pali texts. Once Ananda asked the Buddha, “People say the word Sunya. What is Sunya?” The Buddha replied, “Ananda, there is no self, nor anything pertaining to self in this world. Therefore, the world is empty.” This idea was taken by Nagarjuna when he wrote his remarkable book, “Madhyamika Karika”. Besides the idea of Sunyata is the concept of the store-consciousness in Mahayana Buddhism which has its seed in the Theravada texts. The Mahayanists have developed it into a deep psychology and philosophy.

Ven. Dr. W. Rahula

Re: Indigo Buddhism?

Thanks E for your replies,

I do understand the quote from the Buddha but I do not see how it refers to Huang-Po's “co-extensive with the void”? I find what Huang-Po says to be quite specific and needs not to be assumed to mean the same as “emptiness is form, form is emptiness” etc. Since that refer to more of a static view of phenomena while co-extensive or co-arising is dynamic and evolutionary in time.

Emptiness, empty of self, is an aspect of the Absolute, and in effect, non-dual and unified. Therefore, oneness is its nature. Different realizations points to different aspects of the one and same Ultimate reality. Emptiness can only truly be appreciated in its full and complete understanding of all aspects seen together.

Regarding Bodhisattva's; weren't the first disciples of the Buddha when they had a clear seeing of the Dharma called Bodhisattva's? According to the Pali Canon if I remember it correctly?

One interesting thing about the Bodhisattva vow is that it appeared to the Mahayana around the time of Christ. Had the evolution of general awareness and world consciousness risen collectively for us to appreciate this new aspect? As this was part of the teachings of Jesus.

Re: Indigo Buddhism?

E,

I do think I maybe understand you better today, having remembered the continuation of the gatha; “emptiness is emptiness, form is form”. Separate and distinct, and at the same time non-different.

This plays well with the aspects of the Trinity.

But I still feel it is a slight jump to bridge Huang-Po's statement. I will try to find the passage and quote it back in full. I'm still pondering over it, in regards to your reference. I'll come back to it.

In regards to “depth” and views. Once we take a “point of view” we create space, here and there, near and far, shallow and deep. Understanding we can take any point of view we cancel out this distinction and find ourselves in the center. Neither of those perceptions is a hindrance to clear seeing. Points of views are useful distinctions. Resting in, and being naturally seated in our non-dual oneness we are free to enter all realms at will. Thoughts do not obstruct, neither does feelings or any other “separate” distinctions.

There is but this sole reality Huang-Po liked to call One Mind. It is a wonderful book if you choose to read it.

Re: Indigo Buddhism?

theurj,

“In that sense he achieved one of the same goals as Buddhism, only within his own specific cultural milieu within its own AQAL matrix. So while it is the same it is also different.”

I know less than nothing about Derridra, so this is more of a question than a statement. Was his goal the end of all suffering? in an abstract way you can think of the goal of Buddhism as an ultimate deconstruction of the concept of an inherent self, not just for people but for everything, but that is really also just the method.
We can know many of these things conceptually, but the goal of Buddhism isn't the mental exercise, but the true and lived understanding. It actually feels different to walk down the street with a clear mind and just see reality with no intention. KW is absolutely right that there is a lag between cognitive understanding and a person's entire CoG catching up with that understanding. The Buddha also talked of this in the Sutra of the Poison Arrow, in which he goes into detail about the point of enlightenment being like taking out a poison arrow. Its a good first step, but there is still poison in the wound and a lot to do to really recover. If after this true understanding we still continue conditioning the 5 senses, and reifying objects of awareness, etc… that a person can stunt development or even slide backwards. Actually, it's not the point of enlightenment that he's talking about, but a time in one's development when you understand the true cognitively, but you can still go either way developmentally.  Even after enlightenment there is still a great deal of conditioning that needs to be over come.
This sutra hit closest to home with me.
I'm not saying that Derridra is just conceptualizing an ultimate deconstruction, and that is all, as I don't know his work. But, Buddhism on a whole, is only concerned with getting individuals up the spiral as fast and efficiently as possible, it's not really concerned with the spiral in any detail. Of course, various schools, including all the Tibetan Buddhism are rather detailed in what's going on, whereas many Zen practitioners are totally unconcerned.

Re: Indigo Buddhism?

Yes, one of Derrida's goals, as I see it, is to remove the suffering caused by a “metaphyical” conception of “self.” And that is expressed politically in many ways, so it's also a political agenda to remove such hegemonizing, metaphyiscal “beliefs” within a context of democracy. And much more. But is his goal the “end of all suffering?” I don't know but my guess is that he doesn't see an “end” to anything, for such “ends” are part and parcel of the metaphysical assumption.

As an aside, you noted how different kinds of Buddhism approach things, naming zen and Tibetan. The side issue is regarding how they interpret “emptiness,” which leads to the causal/non-dual distinction I quoted above. It seems most zen traditions do not acknowledge that one must pass through the state-stage of the causal on the way to non-dual, that even such a “stage” conception is antithetical to nonduality. (Correct me if I'm wrong.) And of course the ancient debate about the “primodrial awareness” of Dzogchen being refuted as metaphysical by Madhyamika, and the former accusing the latter of nihilism with nothing “positive” after deconstruction. Sound familiar in today's current debates?

Re: Indigo Buddhism?

Ok, Derrida is now on my reading list, thanx.

I think your understanding of Zen's approach to stage development is correct; although there is no real Zen, just a bunch of individuals with a practice, and some of them often have very complex understandings of stage development.
I think Zen's approach in general though, is that, well in the words of Yoda, “There is no try, there is to only do or not do,” or something like that. Many Zen masters, the one's I've known, are very aware of these things, but they feel that talking about this stuff at great length is just more conceptualization, and conditioning that later would have to be over come anyway.
To a Zen master you either understand the nature of reality, or you don't. The subtle degrees of development are irrelevant to a large degree. Either you get the Koan or you don't. Having less anger, greed and delusion are fine, but there's still anger, greed and delusion. It's like being in a pool of shit up to your knees, whereas it was formerly up to your chin; better, but still not ideal.
Actually, the more you understand the meaner Zen masters get. As soon as they know your committed and not just playing Zen, they get very real. Because, when the shit is up to your chin, either your gonna do something about it or your not, but when its down to your knees you get complacent and need a good kick in the ass often. Like my master says, a zen hall can be a place of violence.
To a Zen master you can talk about higher stages, which is kind of wasting time, or you can put all of your energy into actually “climbing the ladder” as Ken would say.
You can muse and conceptualize the non-dual state of being, or you can embody the non-dual, and at that point there is no thinking or wondering, there is only knowing.
The best Zen metaphor for this, is like AQAL or the 8 fold path being like a finger pointing at the moon. One can look at the moon, or they can become fixated with the finger, which seems to be inevitable and can be aggravated by more and more conceptualizing, which is why my teacher doesn't like AQAL, even though he doesn't disagree with it.
What's funny to me is that KW says this all the time, and has now come out with a Integral life box kit, which is really just an 8 fold path in a box probably. But, he's ultimately pragmatic and most interested in getting people to live a certain way, and get people up the spiral faster as well, and is trying to do it with a wider audience; as much of Buddhism has been relegated into a vague and esoteric “other” in most people's minds.
The Buddha knew this well, and that is why he refused to even deny or patronize various questions. To ask a certain question, like, “what happens after I die, or what is the nature of the universe,” means that any answer given will only confuse the person asking it, so why not just get the person to the point where they realize the irrelevance of the question in the first place.
Example:
A Samana — or wandering ascetic, later to be defined in the time of the Zen schools by the Japanese word hsing-chiao (traveling on foot) — by the name of Vaccha is puzzled by the fact that the Buddha has denied, in turn, each of these four alternatives — 1) that the Enlightened one is reborn after death; 2) that he is not reborn; 3) that he is both reborn and not reborn; 4) and that he is neither reborn nor not reborn. Thus he asks these questions again, but this time the Buddha replies, “To say that he is reborn does not fit the case…. To say that he is not reborn does not fit the case,” and so forth. At this point, Vaccha confesses that he is totally at a loss about what to think. The Buddha then proposes this simile: Suppose a fire which had been burning before you were to go out. If someone were to ask in which direction the fire had gone, north, south, east, or west, what would you reply? “The question would not fit the case.” answers Vaccha. What we have here is something akin to a category mistake.

As far as any issues between the Madhyamika and Dzogchen schools, I have no idea. Again, one, the Madhyamika school of Nagarjuna, which gave rise to the Tibetan school, tends to analysis the Dharma is great detail. Nagarjuna destroys every argument to the Dharma in a very precise, philosophical way. I'm a big fan.
Dzogchen's birth place is Tibet, so I don't see how there could be a lot of issues there. Although, I'm no expert in Dzogchen. I'm sure e has an answer for this.

Re: Indigo Buddhism?

The Dzogchen tradition does use affirming language, and may seem to be positing a metaphysical substance or transcendentally abiding “center,” but I think we have to be very careful here.  If you are attached to substance to the degree that you need to refute it, then any use of affirming language is suspect; but if you have seen through “centers” and substance and inherent self-existence, then it seems to me that affirming language may again be used in one's spiritual discourse.  Provided that it is for an audience that will not mistake the form of the language as an endorsement of metaphysics.

About Dzogchen's “primordial awareness” – I want to explore whether it is fair to identify it with the presence and self-identity that Derrida deconstructs.  For instance, if you look at the play of differance – the sliding play of signifiers, the traces of differences and deferrals – you do not find any solid ground to stand on, any transcendental signified which “stays put.”  In being, each presence or appearance also points away from itself, to absence, to other.  As Derrida points out, even the notion of temporal presence itself 'makes sense' or finds its significance only in the context of past and future.  From a Buddhist perspective, particularly one influenced by Madhyamika, this looks like a fair demonstration of emptiness – of the deconstructive movement which reveals that phenomena lack inherent self-existence.  As I understand it, the Dzogchen view would not contradict this in any way.  But it would point out that this play of differance, this play of empty appearance, is clear and apparent.  Now, if you look for something like “mind” or “consciousness” or “knower,” you will not find any such things located anywhere; there is no transcendental signified to which these words point.  Even “awareness” cannot be found as a thing-in-itself.  Because you cannot find any “locus” of knowing, any center from which it proceeds, you may simply (and, I believe, justifiably) say that appearance is empty and luminous.

One might argue that awareness is a function of the body, that it is built up through evolution, and that the Buddhists are making a metaphysical error when they speak in terms of emptiness and clarity in a universal way, because they are taking the luminosity they “discover” in and as inseparable from the play of appearance as a “given.”  But if you do, the question I have is, can you do so without also implicitly accepting the givenness of matter and body as metaphysical constants?

Here is a relevant Dzogchen quote from Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche:

“Whenever clouds gather, the nature of the sky is not corrupted, and when they disperse, it is not ameliorated. The sky does not become less or more vast. It does not change. It is the same with the nature of mind: it is not spoiled by the arrival of thoughts; nor improved by their disappearance. The nature of the mind is emptiness; its expression is clarity. These two aspects are essentially one's simple images designed to indicate the diverse modalities of the mind. It would be useless to attach oneself in turn to the notion of emptiness , and then to that of clarity, as if they were independent entities. The ultimate nature of mind is beyond all concepts, all definition and all fragmentation.

'I could walk on the clouds!' says a child. But if he reached the clouds, he would find nowhere to place his foot. Likewise, if one does not examine thoughts, they present a solid appearance; but if one examines them, there is nothing there. That is what is called being at the same time empty and apparent. Emptiness of mind is not a nothingness, nor a state of torpor, for it possesses by its very nature a luminous faculty of knowledge which is called Awareness. These two aspects, emptiness and Awareness, cannot be separated. They are essentially one, like the surface of the mirror and the image which is reflected in it.”

Best wishes,

Balder

Re: Indigo Buddhism?

Thanks Balder. I will respond shortly after some assimilation. 

For now I want to provide some context for this Buddhist discussion, particularly on nondual emptiness, with some quotes from kela at the Lightmind Forum in the thread “Causal versus Nondual Nonduality”

Posted: 03/23/07, 8:25 pm

To get the gist of what Ken is on about here in terms of the two 'forms' of non-duality, we need to go back to Da. And from there we need to backtrack, yet once again, to the contrast between trancendentalism and immanentism found in traditions like Mahayana Buddhism, Vedanta, and Shaivism.

In fact, if we follow this line of thinking in detail, there are three structurally distinct forms of the “non-dual.”

In the traditional conception, the “causal state” is deep dreamless sleep. We might say that corresponding to this are the formless samapatti or attainments, sometimes called the formless jhanas. Transcending this “causal formlessness” are respectively, the nirvikalpa samadhi of Yoga/Vedanta synthesis of the 15th century, and what is called nirodha samapatti, the cessation of ideation/perception, in the Buddhist tradition. Both states are uderstood as super-worldy (loka-uttara), that is, as transcending conditioned states of consciousness, which for both traditions involves three-fold structure.

What Da does is purposely conflate traditional conceptions of the third causal state, traditionally a conditioned state of consciousness, with the implied “fourth” state of consciousness, nirvikalpa samadhi/nirodha samapatti, which is traditionally considered a transcedent, if transitory, state. This is to say that he calls both nirvikalpa samadhi and deep dreamless sleep “causal.” That Da breaks with tradition here can be seen by way of his description of the so called “cosmic mandala,” or what Yogananda calls the “spiritual eye.” Yogananda clearly identifies the yellow ring of the mandala with the “subtle” realm and the blue ring with the “causal” dimension. Da, however, says that the red-yellow ring is “gross” and associates the blue ring with the “subtle.” Yogananda identifies the white star at the centre of the field with nirvikalpa samadhi and with transcendence of the three states. Da however relates the star with the “causal” domain.

The effect of Da's classification here is to “ratchet up” his terminology a notch. In effect, what Da is saying is this: “What was causal for you is now merely subtle for me.” This is an rhetorical old trick, and Da is not the first to use this kind of gambit. We find similar moves among the statements of various yogis and sants of the later tradition. This is another reason why their statements cannot be taken phenomenologically at face value: statements about such states and their hierarchy often contain polemical content, and this content needs to by made clear before actual structural comparisons can be drawn. That Kenny follows Da's account is made clear by the fact that Ken often lumps in the third formless samapatti, the state of “nothingness,” with nirodha – something that the Buddhist tradition never does – and calls them both “causal.”

We can now begin to clarify what is going on here vis a vis the terminology of “non-duality.”

In a certain sense, we can call the third state of dreamless sleep “non-dual” in so far as there is no object, no other, no second in this state. This is what the word implies, after all, no (a-) second (dvaita), and this is precisely the sense used by the Brhadaranyaka Upanishad: the third state has no object of consciousness, no other, no second.

But according to the Gaudapada Karika, this third state is still merely a relative state of consciousness. It is different from transcendent states insofar as the “seeds” (bija) of karmic impulses (samskara; vasana) remain in it. But does this mean that the “seeds” of karma, dissappear in the transcedent state? Here the tradition itself gets cloudy. The Gaudapada Karika only refers to the end result, turiya, the enlightened condition (bodha) of release (moksha) in its constrast with deep dreamless sleep. The Yoga Sutra, does speak of a seedless or “nirbija” samadhi. This, the commentaries equate with something they call “asamprajnata samadhi,” which the later Vedanta tradition of Vidyaranya and Sadananda identify with “nirvikalpa samadhi.” But the Yoga Sutra nowhere mentions any such state. It merely makes use of the term “asamprajnata,” and the later commentators like Vijnanabhikshu take this as referring to some sort of samadhi. This identification with “nirbija samadhi” is problematic. For according to a later tradition, the “seeds” of mental karma (samskara) are “burnt up” by repeated entry into asamprajnata samadhi. Thus, asamprajnata samadhi cannot simply be nirbija samadhi since the latter can only refer to the end of the process, to a kind of final state.

In any case, what we find in the Yoga commentaries and later Advaita tradition is the description of a state in which conditioned existence is temporarily transcended. This corresponds, almost in its entirety, with the earlier Buddhist descriptions of “nirodha samapatti” and “asamjnika samapatti,” which the Buddhist texts themselves describe as a kind of “foretaste” of nirvana. This state, then, corrosponds with the “second” form of “non-duality.”

According to Da, this state is but a temporary manifestation. And it remains relative to conditioned existence. While it can be called a kind of absolute state in that it absolutely transcends conditioned existence, it remains relative to conditioned existence. It can, in this sense, be designated a kind of “relative absolute.” According to Da, certain traditions make this state their primary goal and objectify it in their metaphysics (the nirguna brahman of Advaita Vedanta for example). But, he thinks, this state is still a “limited” state. And those traditions that attempt to turn it into a kind of permanent condition, the condition of permanent absorption in perfect formlessness, remain “limited” traditions. According to Da, these traditions discriminate nirvikalpa/nirodha state from worldly existence. In so doing, they create another duality, or, we might say, one duality remains.

In this paper by Edward Conze, in subsection “C,” Conze distinguishes various sense of the term “non-dual” (advaya) in the Prajnaparamita texts. The first two need not interest us as they refer to two senses of the term that can be understood historically; they are associated with the Yogachara and Madhyamika schools, respectively. It is the third sense that we are interested in here; it refers to a sense that needs to be understood structurally. This is the non-duality between the absolute and the relative.

This form of non-duality, it should be noted, is of a different order than the ones we have been discussing so far. Its structural relation can be understood as follows. The first two kinds of non-duality can be understood in horizontal terms. For example, we can think of a constrast or duality between two relative terms, say left and right, male and female, light and dark, etc. We can then think of their “resolution,” a kind of “coincidence of opposites,” as their “non-duality.” But then we have generated another duality, a duality between, on the one hand, the two terms understood as a constrasting pair, and on the other hand, their resolution understood as a unity. This duality I refer to as a vertical duality. The important point to note is that this is a duality of another order. It is in fact a kind of ultimate duality, and it is expressed by the contrast between Brahman and Maya, Shiva and Shakti, Nirvana and Samsara, etc. It is the duality between the absolute and the relative.

What the traditions of “immanentism” attempt to do is “resolve” this final duality. According to them, pure transcendentalism seeks to maintain this final duality, and it does this by laying stress on the absolute term. But this “absolute” is, according to them, but a mere relative absolute since it remains in conflict with, in duality with, conditioned existence (maya, samsara, etc.) Da appropriates this tradition and makes it his own. Hence he begins to speak of “open eyes” (a term taken from Kashmiri Shaivism) samadhi, or “sahaja samadhi,” a kind of “continuous samadhi” in which transcendence is resolved with everyday waking consciousness. Ken refers to this state by means of various metaphysical equations: Emptiness is Form, “nirvana and samsara are the same,” etc.

A Critique of Radical Immanentism

One way of putting this “final resolution” is to say that “everyday consciousness” IS the enlightened condition, that there is no difference, really, between the two: “the enlightened condition is to be found here and now,” etc. The attempt here is to dissolve the “problem” at is very root; in practical terms, thinking that there is a “problem” that needs to be resolved by “sadhana” or some other means, is as much a part of the “problem,” since it implies a dualism between means and goal, seeker/sought, etc., and thus sadhana simply reinforces our conditioned existence by propogating yet more duality. Now we can attempt to do away with “duality” in this manner until it no longer exists. But then the entirety of tradition will come to be called into question, as there will be no distinction between the enlightened and the unenlightened state. This itself is a problem, or at least a grand paradox. My point here is NOT that this is all mere “talking school” and that in fact we need to “practice” because “practice” is “good” and necessary – that is yet another rhetorical bifurcation designed to make people feel good about the fact they put so much effort into their “sadhana” (the Protestant work ethic at work). My point here is merely that at some point, some sort of distinction between the “enlightened” and “unenlightened” state will need to be drawn, and this will mean that a strict adherence to “non-dualism” will need to be abandoned. Either that, or the entirety of tradition will have to be abandoned.

Posted: 03/25/07, 9:20 pm

I'm beginning to get the drift of where you are going with this, theurj. Perhaps it is, indeed, a bit of a problem for Ken, at least in terms of the consistency of his language, as Edward Berge points out.

This is in line with, though not identical with, the comment I made above:

The situation here is analogous to the situation described by E. Berge wherein there is a discrepancy between the absolute considered as transcendent, as the “highest state,” and the absolute considered as the immanent ground, or condition, of all states.

I have exploited the problem in another context, that involving the Witness. In traditional Advaita, the Witness is the transcendental condition of all acts of knowing. For Shankara, it cannot be an object of knowledge, since it is the condition for knowledge (in a manner analogous to Kant's transcendental subject). At times, Ken speaks of the Witness in this manner. At other times, however, he speaks of “witnessing” as a kind “experience” or meditative practice. This leads to various absurdities, such as the idea of “carrying the mirror mind (which Ken identifies with the Witness) into deep dreamless sleep.” Now according to Shankara, the Witness is deep dreamless sleep. In deep dreamless sleep, there is no object of consciousness; there is only the pure Seer (drastr), shining away. Even apart from the problematic notion that one could become “lucid” in deep dreamless sleep – which would mean that consciousness takes on an object (in the form of its own reflexivity) in violation of the contention that in deep dreamless there is no object – we still find the odd notion that we are somehow or other bringing the “witness-consciousness” into deep dreamless sleep (as if it could be slung onto one's back like a backpack), when deep dreamless sleep is itself defined as the Witness. (?) Ken may be influenced by Tibetan Buddhist conceptions of consciouness here, which are based on the conception of consciousness in Yogachara thought. These conceptions of consciousness are fundamentally at odds with Shankara's. In contrast to Shankara's conception, for the Yogachara, consciousness is always self-reflexive, that is, it is able to become its own object; this is called the doctrine of svasamvedana. For Shankara this is a monstrosity, analogous to a tumbler standing on his own shoulders, or as the Brhadaranyaka says, an eye seeing itself; Chandrakirti also rejects it. The idea that consciousness can become its own object allows the Yogachara to argue that consciousness is able to “generate” its own obejct.

In any case, problems, such as the ones I allude to could probably be multiplied. I'll keep an eye out for more.

I've always understood Ken's system as a form of panentheism, by which I mean that it considers the absolute as both transcendent and immanent. When we relate that kind of metaphysics to a transpersonal cartography, it does appear to present certain paradoxes.

One might find it useful to go back to Ken's paper “The Ultimate State of Consciousness” in Eye to Eye to see how he deals with the issue there.

Perhaps the biggest and most gnarly problem that this issue generates has to do with the issue of “practice.” We can see this issue being debated among Neo-Advaitins. Re: If enlightenment is “always already” (i.e., the immanent ground) why practice?

This is, actually, a very old problem. At one point, many of the professional Buddhologists were interested in the issue. Peter Gregory put out an interesing volume of articles on the problem of the relation between Sudden and Gradual Enlightenment. The issue was a defining point in the Samye debate in Tibet between the Indian Madhyamika-Yogachara of Shantarakshita, as defended by his disciple, Kamashila and a version of Ch'an, represented by Zen master Mohoyen. There, Mohoyen was presented as a kind of subitist, and Kamashila argued that this was anathema to “practice.” Ironically, in China, Mohoyen's school was often depicted as gradualist in the debates there! Go figure. That's rhetoric for you.

Posted: 03/24/07, 7:35 pm

This paragraph seems to sum up your ideas:

Yes, Ken does want it “both” ways, but he also wants to order the two in a hierarchy. What I have given above is a kind of “geneology” of his approach. As I say, I think Ken derives most of his approach from Da, specifically from “Nirvanasara.”

I don't see that there is so much of problem here, granted we admit to being “integralists,” and I will wear the hat for the time being for the sake of elucidation. Ken ranks the two forms of “non-duality” or two interpretations of what the term means or refers to. I think I have elucidated how the two senses are ordered in my account. I'm not sure how much more I can say without explicit references to his work, and I don't really have much time for that, though the relevant references can be tracked down; I think I have been fair.

Where I think Ken fudges the lines is between my second and third sense. Still we can, however, understand this fugding along Da's lines of thinking and reduce the three to two: one sense of “non-duality” implies a distinction between purity consciousness and conditioned existence; the second sense attempts an integration or reunion of that distinction, which is as I say a kind of second order duality.

You say:

I'm not sure I understand the distinction you are drawing here. Both refer to Wilber's second form of non-duality. The first form of non-duality is pure consciousness considered in itself. The second non-duality is this consciousness when it is united with conditioned existence.

Perhaps it is the “act” of integration that you are referring to and the discrepancy between being non-dual and becoming non-dual. Is this what you mean: whereas Zen says that the two are always already one, the developmental model says that the two must become integrated. (?)

Ken would probably respond as follows: “But once the two are finally reconciled, there comes the realization that they were always already reconciled to begin with.”

Perhaps what we need here is a theory of “ignorance” and/or a two level theory of truth to explain all this. From the first level of truth, there is indeed “development.” “Practice” is real from the point of view of the practitioner. But from the second level of truth, all such “development” was an illusion, an instance of ignorance, to begin with. Ken appears to want to draw upon the conclusions of such theorizing without bringing all of its materials into the discussion. Perhaps that is why it is unclear.

Posted: 03/25/07, 9:45 pm

Good. I think you have discovered that it is not easy to reconcile Shankara's conception of consciousness with that of the Yogachara when the two are so at odds with each other.

On the question of the relativity of terms in Buddhism, I might add the following excerpt from my article, “Are Emptiness and Brahman the Same: Part III”:

Posted: 03/29/07, 5:49 pm

This is the distinction that I had in mind in my comments, though I give the distinction a spin that may not correspond exactly to Tibetan Buddhist accounts.

Traditionally, Buddhism in general considers itself Rangtong while heretical schools such as Advaita Vedanta and Samkhya are considered Shentong.

However, there is a sub-school of the Kalachakra Tantra “school” in Tibet, the Jonang-pa, that consider themselves Shentong. They are the only Buddhists that understand themselves as Shentong (as far as I know; this is a burgeoning field).

I think we need to be careful with the Wikipedia article. Occasionally, the polemical charge is made that some school of Buddhism, or some text, is Shentong. This is tantamount to calling someone a heretic, a turncoat, an atma-vadin, a Vedantin (horror of horrors).

There were two sub-schools of Yogachara. One, the less mainstream one in India, was associated with the doctrine of the “tathagata-garbha,” the “matrix of the buddha,” as well as with the doctrine that consciousness (vijnana) “creates” the world. For some Buddhists, the “buddha-matrix” doctrine sounded very much the Vedantins' doctrine of the absolute brahman, and they occasionally made the charge of “heresy,” of “atma-vada,” against those that held the teaching of the “buddha-matrix.” So, saying that the Yogachara was occasionally called a “Shentong” school is tantamount to saying that some Yogacharins were occasionally considered heretical. Though this interpretation of Yogachara died out in India, it was strong in China, where ideas of the “inherent buddha-nature” caught on more easily, due to the presence of theories concerning the “innate human goodness” among Confucians and of the “naturalness” (tzu-jan) of the Tao among Taoists.

The debate between the Madhyamika and Yogachara did not involve the above charge explicitly as much as it served as a kind of limiting condition for the debate; this is to say that the Yogachara insisted that they were not Shentong, while the Madhyamika suggested that they were in danger of compromising with this position.

We need to also be careful concerning the how we understand the “neti-neti” in Advaita Vedanta. According to Shankara, the neti neti negates everything except the formless brahman and pure self. Here is an extract from the same essay at my site on the subject:

Incidently, the image of the crystal is also used by Advaita Vedanta. The idea with the crystal is not so much related to the above as to the idea that enlightenment is innate, and to the idea that ignorance does not essentially belong to the self, anymore than a crystal sitting on a sheet of red cloth is “really” red.

Re: Indigo Buddhism?

Balder,

Good points. I admit an attachment to the postmetaphsyical project so tend to see a metaphysical postulate in any claim to “presence,” including the Dzogchen. And I see your point that the latter indeed also reject the metaphysical but somehow find a way to describe the pimordial awareness (PA) nonetheless. I honestly don't have the “answer,” and am again tired of seeking one.

“There will be an answer, let it be, let it be.” –The Beatles

Re: Indigo Buddhism?

“In regards to “depth” and views. Once we take a “point of view” we create space, here and there, near and far, shallow and deep. Understanding we can take any point of view we cancel out this distinction and find ourselves in the center. Neither of those perceptions is a hindrance to clear seeing. Points of views are useful distinctions. Resting in, and being naturally seated in our non-dual oneness we are free to enter all realms at will. Thoughts do not obstruct, neither does feelings or any other “separate” distinctions.”

This is really cool, Bjorn. I saw this much more clearly after reading your words. We really choose, on some level, to create those spaces and how much to believe in them. Usually people speak of objects or phenomena arising in our awareness, but it's really cool and helpful to see it as different spaces or dimensions arising, each with its own objects, psychology, feelings, interpretations, etc.

e said: “David : In early Buddhism the thing to do was just get off the wheel, escape to nirvikilpaka. Later there was the addition of compassionate action and the boddhisatva vow.

e said: “This is simply not true. In early Buddhism the only one that could be called a Boddhisatva was the current Buddha. That is, they defined a Boddhisatva as the Buddha to be in an age where there was no Dharma. So from the early teaching's point of view, Boddhisatva just referenced Gautama Buddha in his previous lives when the prior Buddha's teachings had already disappeared. From the early teachings point of view, you cannot be a Boddhisatva unless there was no Buddhism anymore. The Bodhisatva re-discovers the dharma. Regarding compassion, in early Buddhism, the 4 Brahma Viharas were/are an essential part of the path!!”

Ken:
 
“In the traditions, you find at least two major, very different conceptions of enlightenment. One was prevalent during the Axial period, starting at around 2000 B.C.E. up until roughly 100 A.D. And that was probably best expressed in the early Buddhist tradition, the Theravadan tradition, in the concept of nirvana or nirvikalpa, which basically means immersion in a formless realm, where there is no manifestation and no objects are arising. It is a state of consciousness utterly free of change, utterly free of time and space and self and turmoil. The classic analogy, for those who haven't had that experience, is that it's something like deep, dreamless sleep. You enter a state of formless consciousness. That state of nirvana was held to be the highest state of realization and was thought to be completely divorced from samsara. The world of emptiness was completely divorced from the world of form. Emptiness was transcendent and timeless; form was temporal-suffering, pain, illusion, and so on. And the goal, no question, was to get out of samsara, “off the wheel,” and into nirvana.

  I think the real revolution in spirituality occurred about that time, starting particularly with the genius Nagarjuna in the East and Plotinus in the West. That was the breakthrough to what could be called nondual enlightenment or the nondual realization, which is a profound understanding of nirvana, or emptiness or the timeless or the transcendent, but it's also a union because it's a realization wedded with the entire world of form, with the world of samsara. So the whole notion of the nondual traditions was not that you got into a state that was formless, unmanifest cessation, but that that formlessness or that emptiness was one with all forms that were arising moment to moment. And that nondual state, or sahaj, was, in a sense, both the basis of the bodhisattva vow and the beginning of the tantric traditions. The idea was that somehow the world of samsara and the world of nirvana had to go hand in hand or you didn't really have a full, complete, or, if you will, integral being.

So on the one hand, it's still true that the dharmakaya or emptiness or the perfectly formless realm doesn't enter the stream of time. But on the other hand, that's only half the picture. The other half is that there is a stream of time, there is development, there is unfolding, there is evolution, there is transformation. And the real key to this discussion, I think, is when you understand that the only way you can permanently and fully realize emptiness is if you transform, evolve, or develop your vehicle in the world of form. The vehicles that are going to realize emptiness have to be up to the task. That means they have to be developed; they have to be transformed and aligned with spiritual realization. That means that the transcendent and the immanent have to, in a sense, flavor each other… . And let me just add, evolution occurs in the world of form, not in the world of emptiness. But that means that evolution is half of the equation. And so unless you get involved in ways to carry evolution forward, you are not going to be fully realizing the emptiness that you are.”

Wilber: The grain of the Kosmos is the moral compass. The whole point about morality is that it follows the Eros or the grain of the universe. And that grain right now is the evolutionary unfolding. That's where the moral compass is oriented. So you try to say, “I'm going to get with the evolutionary impulse,” because the evolutionary impulse is increasing wholeness, increasing care, increasing compassion, and increasing consciousness. That's the moral compass by which we're making judgments. And the Authentic Self, the deeper psychic, is the one that is relaying that to us.

Cohen: Right, exactly. The thing is, this makes sense; it's very logical. Understanding the Authentic Self fills in the important gaps, especially for people who are interested in enlightenment today, because the old model just doesn't–

Wilber:–doesn't quite work.

Cohen: No, it doesn't answer the important questions about the right relationship to the manifest realm and to an evolving universe. So the Authentic Self has to help us really redefine and give birth to a new context–a new spiritual, philosophical, and moral framework. But very few people seem to know about it. In fact, besides Aurobindo, I've never heard anybody speak about the Authentic Self in this way.

Wilber: You have to do a fair amount of translation and it wouldn't fit quite as well, but a lot of the Christian mystics, in their orientation to the soul, are pretty good on some of that. Also, a lot of Kabbalists are pretty good on that kind of stuff, as is tantra. But even those profound mystics have always been an extreme minority–East or West–in terms of what's really going on. That's the tragedy. And in our culture right now, in our generation, unfortunately what we have, on one hand, is what I believe is a misunderstanding of the anatta [no self] doctrine, which just trashes everything manifest and puts you in that radical pluralistic, relativistic, extreme postmodern nightmare that we've talked so much about. That's what so much of American Buddhism is doing now. Or we get the neo-vedantist or pure absolute approach, on the other hand. And the Authentic Self gets gutted one way or another–in a sense, those are the two lousy choices that we have at large.

Cohen: Precisely.

Wilber: And in my opinion, it's a travesty on both sides, but it's certainly a travesty with regard to Buddhism because the Vajrayana position does have room for the Authentic Self. It does have the soul that transmigrates and carries one's wisdom and one's virtue. But all that gets trashed as well. It's truly a travesty.

Re: Indigo Buddhism?

Theurj:

It seems most zen traditions do not acknowledge that one must pass through the state-stage of the causal on the way to non-dual, that even such a “stage” conception is antithetical to nonduality. (Correct me if I'm wrong.) 

See the 10 ox Herding Pictures.

But this is an old debate. The sudden vs. the gradual schools. Here is what the originator said…

Just as the ocean has a gradual shelf, a gradual slope, a gradual inclination, with a sudden drop-off only after a long stretch, in the same way this Doctrine and Discipline (dhamma-vinaya) has a gradual training, a gradual performance, a gradual progression, with a penetration to gnosis only after a long stretch.

Bjorn:

There is but this sole reality Huang-Po liked to call One Mind. It is a wonderful book if you choose to read it.

It could just be the translation of ‘One Mind'. It may also be a translation for the term 'Original Mind'. This term is more common in some schools of Buddhism. Thanks for the reference, I will get the book.

—–

Holden:

I would still say that this awareness within the Tibetan model is also still undefined and unexplained.

Pick up Mahamudra: The Moonlight – Quintessence of Mind and Meditation

It is over 500 pages of theory and practice, all about Emptiness!!!

Holden:

As far as any issues between the Madhyamika and Dzogchen schools, I have no idea. Again, one, the Madhyamika school of Nagarjuna, which gave rise to the Tibetan school, tends to analysis the Dharma is great detail. Nagarjuna destroys every argument to the Dharma in a very precise, philosophical way. I'm a big fan.
Dzogchen's birth place is Tibet, so I don't see how there could be a lot of issues there. Although, I'm no expert in Dzogchen. I'm sure e has an answer for this.

The Vajrayana party line maintains that Madhyamika is the highest you can go sutra wise. They claim Dzogchen and Mahamudra eclipse this by looking at the mind directly via meditation and not only via sutric analytics. Madhyamika is considered the second urning of the wheel, Vajrayana the 3^rd. There is no real issue within the tradition outside of scholastic debates. Like you said, most everybody loves Nagarjuna. Seen within a historical perscpective, Nagarjuna was just returning the dharma back to the Middle. Some feel that the Abhidharma was going off into the wrong direction with its atomistic renditions of paramatha (ultimate) dhammas and Nagarjuna's Madhyamika was a response to this at Nalanda (the early Buddhist university).

—–

Coming back to the beginning of this thread.

Theurj:

So assuming that Nagarjuna and Padmasambhava and even the current Dalai Lama are not indigo level, then we must take their interpretations of their state experiences as the interpretations of a lower level. And given that indigo level is just now forming in our kosmic groove, how does it interpret such as nonduality? It would seem vision-logical to assume that interpretation would not just be regurgitation of the traditional way, no? And those who interpret such states in that same traditional way must surely not be indigo, no? Unless the traditional interpretations really did time-warp to the future in indigo? Help me out here please.

We can ask if the ancient teachers were or were not at a very high level of development. And from their words we can try and deduce their level. But you have to think about who was around them at the time. The teaching will take this form and not necessarily the form of the teachers development. There is a famous sutta called the Handful of Leaves where the Buddha asks the monks with him, “what is more, the leaves in my hand or the leaves in the forest?” The monks reply, “no duh, the leaves in the forest”. The Buddha then says, “my understanding is akin to the leaves in the forest but what I teach is akin to the leaves in my hand. Why? Because what I teach is efficacious solely to the goal.” So even KW admits this in IS. If you are in a tradition, augment with more current modern and post-modern understandings i.e. some ego mechanics and post-modern analysis of the lay of the land to help keep your practice's interpretative framework relevant to the age you are in. No big deal really.

peace & love,

e

Re: Indigo Buddhism?

e wrote: “See the 10 ox Herding Pictures.”

That is true. The 10 paintings with subtext are arranged in a row at the Ch'an hall that I went through meditation training over a year in. There are 10 stages detailing the development of the mind towards to non-dual. I think its more than a coincedence that KW also happens to have 10 steps to the non-dual. Yet I've never heard a Dharma talk about anything like this. It goes to show that, like I was saying, just because Zen masters don't choose to talk a lot about individual state development, that doesn't mean they aren't fully aware of them. That's why teachers are always testing their student's Zen, in order to know where they are at to make sure they can customize the practice and give advice. They don't always tell you that's what their doing, but after a while, I picked up what was going on. I wasn't even thinking about those paintings until e brought them up. Goes to show that a little e is always good for the mind.

“Pick up Mahamudra: The Moonlight – Quintessence of Mind and Meditation

It is over 500 pages of theory and practice, all about Emptiness!!!”

I just got done with the Mulamadhyamakakarika, or Nagarjuna's, “The Fundamental Wisdom of the Middle Way,” in which all that's done is to show in detail how all things are empty, and destroys all claims otherwise. It's very repetative because it just does it over and over to show that there's no exception for the emptiness of all things. 

But, at the end of the day, while all is empty of a self, there is still something-still awareness, this Original mind. Emptyness can be explained, but this awareness can't be, it can only be experienced in the moment. It is ungraspable. Unless you know something I don't, from what I understand, Buddhism at the end of the day tells us that we must learn to live with the uncertainty of this. I will check out that other book though, I haven't read it.

“Madhyamika is considered the second urning of the wheel, Vajrayana the 3^rd. There is no real issue within the tradition outside of scholastic debates. Like you said, most everybody loves Nagarjuna. Seen within a historical perscpective, Nagarjuna was just returning the dharma back to the Middle. Some feel that the Abhidharma was going off into the wrong direction with its atomistic renditions of paramatha (ultimate) dhammas and Nagarjuna's Madhyamika was a response to this at Nalanda (the early Buddhist university).”

Yes that's what I've read as well from Jay Garfield the Tibetan scholar. But, I think this also shows the reality of geography and culture, as the Zen schools of India and China, also look at mind directly and both Bodhidharma and Huang-Po show us in detail this.  I can see what your saying though. Nagarjuna's writings show that he is definitly writing not just to show the truth, but to refute many of the other schools that were heading towards either nihilism or reification. Both Nagarjuna and Bodhidharma write like they are debating.

“The teaching will take this form and not necessarily the form of the teachers development.”

This is a great point e, thanx. Reminds me also that our present interpretations of the sutras, my assume a more archaic world-view. To quote Bodhidharma as he clears things up:

The sutras of the Buddha contain countless metaphors. Because mortals have shallow minds and don’t understand anything deep, the Buddha used the tangible to represent the sublime. People who seek blessings by concentrating on external works instead of internal cultivation are attempting the impossible, What you call a monastery we call a sangbarama, a place of purity. But whoever denies entry to the three poisons and keeps the gates of his senses pure, his body and mind still, inside and outside clean, builds a monastery.

Casting statues refers to all practices cultivated by those who seek enlightenment. The Tathagata’s sublime form can’t be represented by metal. Those who seek enlightenment regard their bodies as the furnace, the Dharma as the fire, wisdom as the craftsmanship, and the three sets of precepts and six paramitas as the mold. They smelt and refine the true buddha-nature within themselves and pour it into the mold formed by the rules of discipline. Acting in perfect accordance with the -Buddha’s teaching, they naturally create a perfect likeness. ‘Me eternal, sublime body isn’t subject to conditions or decay. If you seek the Truth but dont learn how to make a true likeness, what will you use in its place?

And burning incense doesn’t mean ordinary material incense but the incense of the intangible Dharma, which drives away filth, ignorance, and evil deeds with its perfume. There are five kinds of such Dharma-incense. First is the incense of morality, which means renouncing evil and cultivating virtue. Second is the incense of meditation, which means deeply believing in the Mahayana with unwavering resolve. Third is the incense of wisdom, which means contemplating the body and mind, inside and out. Fourth is the incense of liberation, which means severing the bonds of ignorance. And fifth is the incense of perfect knowledge, which means being always aware and nowhere obstructed. These five are the most precious kinds of incense and far superior to anything the world has to offer.

When the Buddha was in the world, he told his disciples to light such precious incense with the fire of awareness as an offering to the Buddhas of the ten directions. But people today don’t understand the Tathagata’s real meaning. They use an ordinary flame to light material incense of sandalwood or frankincense and pray for some future blessing that never comes.

For scattering flowers the same holds true. This refers to speaking the Dharma, scattering flowers of virtue, in order to benefit others and glorify the real sell. These flowers of virtue are those praised by the Buddha. They last forever and never fade. And whoever scatters such flowers reaps infinite blessings. If you think the Tathagata meant for people to harm plants by cutting off their flowers, you’re wrong. Those who observe the precepts don’t injure any of the myriad life forms of heaven and earth. If you hurt something by mistake, you suffer for it. But those who intentionally break the precepts by injuring the living for the sake of future blessings suffer even more, How could they let would-be blessings turn into sorrows?

The eternal lamp represents perfect awareness. Likening the illumination of awareness to that of a lamp, those who seek liberation see their body as the lamp, their mind as its wick, the addition of discipline as its oil, and the power of wisdom as its flame. By lighting this lamp of perfect awareness they dispel all darkness and delusion. And by passing this Dharma on to others they’re able to use one lamp to light thousands of lamps. And because these lamps likewise light countless other lamps, their light lasts forever.

THEN:

The words of the Buddha are true. But the three-asankhya kalpas refer to the three poisoned states of mind. What we call asankhya in Sanskrit you call countless. Within these three poisoned states of mind are countless evil thoughts, And every thought lasts a kalpa. Such an infinity is what the Buddha meant by the three asankhya kalpas, Once the three poisons obscure your real self, how can you be called liberated until you overcome their countless evil thoughts? People who can transform the three poisons of greed, anger, and delusion into the three releases are said to pass through the three-sankhya kalpas. But people of this final age are the densest of fools. They don’t understand what the Tathagata really meant by the three-asankhya kalpas. They say enlightenment is only achieved after endless kalpas and thereby mislead disciples to retreat on the path to Buddhahood. But the great bodbisattvas have achieved enlightenment only by observing the three sets of precepts”’ and practicing the six Paramitas.

Now you tell disciples merely to behold the mind. How can anyone reach enlightenment without cultivating the rules of discipline?

The three sets of precepts are for overcoming the three poisoned states of mind, When you overcome these poisons, you create three sets of limitless virtue, A set gathers things together-in this case, countless good thoughts throughout your mind. And the six paramitas are for purifying the six senses. What we call paramitas you call means to the other shore. By purifying your six senses of the dust of sensation, the paramitas ferry you across the River of Affliction to the Shore of Enlightenment.

According to the sutras, the three sets of precepts are, “I vow, to put an end to all evils. I vow to cultivate all virtues. And I vow to liberate all beings.” But now you say they’re only for controlling the three poisoned states of mind.

Isn’t this contrary to the meaning of the scriptures?

The sutras of the Buddha are true. But long ago, when that great bodhisattva was cultivating the seed of enlightenment, it was to counter the three poisons that he made his three vows. Practicing moral prohibitions to counter the poison of greed, he vowed to put an end to all evils. Practicing meditation to Counter the poison of anger, he vowed to cultivate all virtues. And practicing wisdom to counter the poison of delusion, he vowed to liberate all beings. Because he persevered in these three pure practices of morality, meditation, and wisdom, he was able to overcome the three poisons and reach enlightenment. By overcoming the three poisons he wiped out everything sinful and thus put an end to evil. By observing the three sets of precepts he did nothing but good and thus cultivated virtue. And by putting an end to evil and cultivating virtue lie consummate all practices, benefited himself as well as others, and rescued mortals everywhere. Thus he liberated beings.

You should realize that the practice you cultivate doesn’t exist apart from your mind. If your mind is pure, all buddha-lands are pure. The sutras say, “if their minds are impure, beings are impure. If their minds are pure, beings are pure,” And “To reach a buddha-land, purify your mind. As your mind becomes pure, buddha-lands become pure.” Thus by overcoming the three poisoned states of mind the three sets of precepts are automatically fulfilled.

——-

He goes on like this deconstructing a few more sutras.

Re: Indigo Buddhism?

e, there is a discussion in the forward to the book why Blofelt choose to use One Mind over an alternative translation. I am grateful that he did use One Mind, because to me the much used “Universal Mind” or “Original Mind” never really landed with me. I can understand Universal Mind and see its scope but it puts the emphases a little outside of me. Original Mind I have always liked as it points to our fundamental nature, but still did not bring it home completely. One Mind hit the mark for me, pointing out our fundamentally undivided union of our everyday normal mind, just as it is right now. This mind of ours is one, and when reading Huang-Po's words from that understanding he simply brings profound depths to our path. He does not just simply point to the ever present essence. He clarifies it in regards to its active, ever alive and responsive quality. He demands union in thought, word and deed. Happy reading.

By the way, I really enjoy all your knowledge about Buddhism. Maybe a lot to take in and read but I skim and see if something catches my eye. Hope this doesn't detract from your thorough line of investigation. Thanks all.

Re: Indigo Buddhism?

The Zen Teachings of Huang-Po, Shambhala, starts at 65 pounds and 65 dollars! You can spend over 300 pounds on that book and over 600 dollars! Maybe they have it at the library …

Re: Indigo Buddhism?

Yes, returning to the beginning of the thread: What are some specific Buddhist doctrines and practices that are less than 2nd tier and why? And how are they made 2nd or 3rd tier? One of my earlier points was that do we just take them as they are, lower level and all, and merely recontextualize (interpret) them in an AQAL framework? Or (or in addition to) do the practices and doctrines themselves transform?

Re: Indigo Buddhism?

Hi David,

Sorry, that was my favorite pocket edition. There is one readily sold for $10. See here: Huang-Po.

I found the quote that I mentioned earlier (page 79),

…the doctrine that the One Mind, which is the substance of all things, is co-extensive with the Void and fills the entire world of phenomena.

Re: Indigo Buddhism?

I had the impression that the Shambhala translation was especially good. Are you familiar with the other one as well?

Re: Indigo Buddhism?

Hi David,

It's the same translation. Just a newer edition.

Re: Indigo Buddhism?

I would also like to recommend Dogen's (founder of the Soto Zen lineage) major work: Shobogenzo, in 3 Vol. He reviews many of the old zen masters of China including Huang-Po, whom he praises highly.

Have a look,
Shobogenzo

Re: Indigo Buddhism?

Thanks, Bjorn. I wasn't reading carefully. The new edition prints all four of his names.

Re: Indigo Buddhism?

“What are some specific Buddhist doctrines and practices that are less than 2nd tier and why? And how are they made 2nd or 3rd tier?” –theurj

You might say that this is the prejuduce of a Budddhist, but there really aren't any. Buddhist philosophy begins at the rational and moves from there.

There are many practices, as all ritual in Buddism is culturally derived, that I personally don't understand and seem pre-2nd tier, but that may be just my lack of imformation or my misunderstanding. The main one that I wonder about is the repentence ceremony in Zen. But, as was explained to me by a few monks, the ceremony itself and all Zen ceremonies is kind of a template which is interpreted differently by each person and each person derives from it what they need depending on where they are on the path. Guilt, after all, can be an important tool when not dwelled upon, but used positively to foster proper future conduct.
When I started questioning the beauty of the meditation hall (there has to be a million dollars worth or work, art and materials in it) (it didn't actually cost that, because everything is hand-made by monks for free), the abbot pulled me aside and told me they made it that way becaue the average person off the street expected it. They also served 3 free, really good meals a day. He said that people may come for the food and beauty, but hopefully they will leave with some of the Dharma. They are in the business of planting seeds.

There's a story, don't know if it's true, about the first time the Buddha tried ot teach the Dharma and no one understood anything, so he found a way to adjust the teachings to begin a the state a person was in so they could move from there. It's very adaptive. So, a person may start out believing in Karma or rebirth in a certain pre-rational or rational way, but that isn't the teaching, that is the person's mind. If you read my last post I explain this in detail using Bodhidharma's words.
So while there are many Buddhists that have pre-2nd tier conceptions of various doctrines or practices, they are merely misunderstood by the person.

Re: Indigo Buddhism?

Bjorn:

By the way, I really enjoy all your knowledge about Buddhism. Maybe a lot to take in and read but I skim and see if something catches my eye. Hope this doesn't detract from your thorough line of investigation. Thanks all.

Never a problem Bjorn. Enjoy all your input as well! BTW The realized aspirants in the Pali were called Arahats or Arahants (Buddhist Saints basically).  Also, see the short sutra below I left with Holden. Earlier you mentioned the static nature of form in relation to emptiness, etc But the 5 aggregates were never considered static. They were in constant flux. The 5 aggregates were just one of the teaching's associated with Emptiness in the Heart Sutra. It also uses Dependent Origination, 6 contacts, etc.

Holden:

But, at the end of the day, while all is empty of a self, there is still something-still awareness, this Original mind. Emptyness can be explained, but this awareness can't be, it can only be experienced in the moment. It is ungraspable. Unless you know something I don't, from what I understand, Buddhism at the end of the day tells us that we must learn to live with the uncertainty of this. I will check out that other book though, I haven't read it.

Oh OK I see what you were saying now. I thought you were saying Emptiness could not be intellectually defined or grappled with. You were talking about awareness or consciousness, gotcha. BTW you know this Original Mind, One Mind, Buddha Nature ideas were never proffered by the Buddha. He left you completely free with nothing to hold onto, no ontological scaffolding to form a view of self around. Here is a nice one on the 5 aggregates. (Sorry for the length):

“On one occasion the Blessed One was staying among the Ayojjhans on the banks of the Ganges River. There he addressed the monks: “Monks, suppose that a large glob of foam were floating down this Ganges River, and a man with good eyesight were to see it, observe it, & appropriately examine it. To him - seeing it, observing it, & appropriately examining it - it would appear empty, void, without substance: for what substance would there be in a glob of foam? In the same way, a monk sees, observes, & appropriately examines any form that is past, future, or present; internal or external; blatant or subtle; common or sublime; far or near. To him - seeing it, observing it, & appropriately examining it - it would appear empty, void, without substance: for what substance would there be in form?

“Now suppose that in the autumn - when it's raining in fat, heavy drops - a water bubble were to appear & disappear on the water, and a man with good eyesight were to see it, observe it, & appropriately examine it. To him - seeing it, observing it, & appropriately examining it - it would appear empty, void, without substance: for what substance would there be in a water bubble? In the same way, a monk sees, observes, & appropriately examines any feeling that is past, future, or present; internal or external; blatant or subtle; common or sublime; far or near. To him - seeing it, observing it, & appropriately examining it - it would appear empty, void, without substance: for what substance would there be in feeling?

“Now suppose that in the last month of the hot season a mirage were shimmering, and a man with good eyesight were to see it, observe it, & appropriately examine it. To him - seeing it, observing it, & appropriately examining it - it would appear empty, void, without substance: for what substance would there be in a mirage? In the same way, a monk sees, observes, & appropriately examines any perception that is past, future, or present; internal or external; blatant or subtle; common or sublime; far or near. To him - seeing it, observing it, & appropriately examining it - it would appear empty, void, without substance: for what substance would there be in perception?

“Now suppose that a man desiring heartwood, in quest of heartwood, seeking heartwood, were to go into a forest carrying a sharp ax. There he would see a large banana tree: straight, young, of enormous height. He would cut it at the root and, having cut it at the root, would chop off the top. Having chopped off the top, he would peel away the outer skin. Peeling away the outer skin, he wouldn't even find sapwood, to say nothing of heartwood. Then a man with good eyesight would see it, observe it, & appropriately examine it. To him - seeing it, observing it, & appropriately examining it - it would appear empty, void, without substance: for what substance would there be in a banana tree? In the same way, a monk sees, observes, & appropriately examines any fabrications that are past, future, or present; internal or external; blatant or subtle; common or sublime; far or near. To him - seeing them, observing them, & appropriately examining them - they would appear empty, void, without substance: for what substance would there be in fabrications?

“Now suppose that a magician or magician's apprentice were to display a magic trick at a major intersection, and a man with good eyesight were to see it, observe it, & appropriately examine it. To him - seeing it, observing it, & appropriately examining it - it would appear empty, void, without substance: for what substance would there be in a magic trick? In the same way, a monk sees, observes, & appropriately examines any consciousness that is past, future, or present; internal or external; blatant or subtle; common or sublime; far or near. To him - seeing it, observing it, & appropriately examining it - it would appear empty, void, without substance: for what substance would there be in consciousness?”

—-

David,

The early buddhists believed that time was circular, …

No, they felt that experience was cyclically repeating (samsaric). Time was flowing on and samsara had no discernable beginning.

Really what indigo Buddhism needs is a third element (such as deeper psychic or authentic self or evolutionary impulse) in addition to ego and witness, because ego is compulsively and forever resistant to the evolutionary impulse, and the witness, at least as it's usually defined, stands apart from it. 

This is a bit of an issue with Buddhism. I even saw a video on the web where Traleg Rinpoche was saying that there is no witness in Buddhism. That Buddhism does not believe in this ‘position'. For a Buddhist there is no God's eye view. All is dependently arisen. Below Ken is stating the Mahayana party line view of Theravada. IMHO this is wrong. This is not what is portrayed in the old sutras but what is said about Theravada by the Mahayana. It is almost as if when the Mahayana was getting started at Nalanda, they had to be against something in order to maintain and establish their ‘position'. But at heart, Buddhism is about relinquishing positions (see Nagarjuna). I will intersperse some comments below.
 

Ken:
 “In the traditions, you find at least two major, very different conceptions of enlightenment. One was prevalent during the Axial period, starting at around 2000 B.C.E. up until roughly 100 A.D. And that was probably best expressed in the early Buddhist tradition, the Theravadan tradition, in the concept of nirvana or nirvikalpa, which basically means immersion in a formless realm, where there is no manifestation and no objects are arising. It is a state of consciousness utterly free of change, utterly free of time and space and self and turmoil. The classic analogy, for those who haven't had that experience, is that it's something like deep, dreamless sleep. You enter a state of formless consciousness.

He is describing here the formless jhanas. Specifically the last 2 of 8 i.e. the state of Nothingness and the state of Neither Perception nor Non-perception. This is NOT considered Nirvana in Theravada but a rarefied and exalted conditioned state of concentration. If one could master these 8 jhanic states, one was considered to have mastered Right Concentration within the 8-fold path. In some places there is a 9^th jhana called Nirodha (cessation). But even Pali scholars today don't quite know what it means. Does it mean cessation of the 3 poisons or cessation of consciousness, yada, yada, yada. Non-dual Suchness and Emptiness is all thru the suttas.

That state of nirvana was held to be the highest state of realization and was thought to be completely divorced from samsara. The world of emptiness was completely divorced from the world of form. Emptiness was transcendent and timeless; form was temporal-suffering, pain, illusion, and so on. And the goal, no question, was to get out of samsara, “off the wheel,” and into nirvana.

In the early teaching, one did not have a choice to come back into samsara after realization. Even the Buddha could not ‘come back' and be reborn after he died (does anyone know where he is now?). When one entered the stream of the Dharma, ones karma would be exhausted and one could not take rebirth again. There was the idea of the 4 Noble people corresponding to 4 deepening realizations of Nirvana. The Stream-winner had a glimpse of Nirvana and would be reborn at most 7 times and could not take a lower rebirth. The Once-returner was reborn to the human realm 1 more time and then realized Nirvana. The Non-returner would be reborn in a heavenly realm and from there realize Nirvana. The Arahant realized Nirvana in this very life. So it is not that the view was to get out and leave everyone behind, etc but to be established on the path and to enter the stream sealed your fate so to speak. If you entered the stream, you had no choice, as you started to live in a way that led to producing no more karma. No more karma, no more rebirth. Regarding samsara/nirvana, it was not like this. There was a beautiful sutta that explains the roots of this polemic. From memory, “it is as if you are walking along one side of a stream and your way is hard fought with thickets, with bramble bushes with a rocky shoreline. And on the other side the way is open and clear and the path is easy. I merely offer a way to cross over to that other side”.

Theurj: Yes, returning to the beginning of the thread: What are some specific Buddhist doctrines and practices that are less than 2nd tier and why? And how are they made 2nd or 3rd tier? One of my earlier points was that do we just take them as they are, lower level and all, and merely recontextualize (interpret) them in an AQAL framework? Or (or in addition to) do the practices and doctrines themselves transform?

I will try and get back to you on this over the weekend. I can go on and on about this but will offer a few thoughts.


peace & love,

e

Re: Indigo Buddhism?

David said: ”The early buddhists believed that time was circular, …”

e said: “No, they felt that experience was cyclically repeating (samsaric). Time was flowing on and samsara had no discernable beginning.”

The word cycle means “any complete round or series of occurrences that repeats or is repeated.” Also, the word cycle comes from the Greek kyklos, which means circle or wheel. So there's not a big difference. But the point is, not all of Buddhism has woken up from this, and integrating the idea of evolution more fully would be one of the ways that it would move more completely into second and third tier. 
 

Ken Wilber:  In the world of form, we are seeing an unmistakable drift toward increasing levels of differentiation and integration and complexity and unification. And that's a profound understanding because it means that our vehicle in the world of form is becoming more transparent to the processes that are in the world of form. That changes everything. It doesn't matter how deeply enlightened somebody was a thousand years ago, the world of form did not include that understanding. So that wasn't part of their realization, even though their realization of emptiness was exactly as great as ours can be today because emptiness is emptiness, it doesn't change, it has no moving parts, and so on. So we're not taking anything away from the sage who lived a thousand years ago. We have one thing on that sage, however-we're alive now. And a thousand years from now, people will look back at our world of form and laugh hysterically over what idiots we were. But in the meantime, we have to get on with embodying this world of form with radical emptiness, and the result is, yes, a type of evolutionary emptiness. Or “evolutionary enlightenment,” sure.

Andrew Cohen: And in this evolutionary enlightenment, the significant element, as I understand it anyway, is the surrender to the movement of an awakened compulsion to participate wholeheartedly in the evolutionary process forthe sake of evolution itself. That's what evolutionary enlightenment is all about, not merely the attainment of one's personal liberation from or transcendence of this world.

KW: Yes, I agree.

Re: Indigo Buddhism?

“The word cycle means “any complete round or series of occurrences that repeats or is repeated.” Also, the word cycle comes from the Greek kyklos, which means circle or wheel. So there's not a big difference. But the point is, not all of Buddhism has woken up from this, and integrating the idea of evolution more fully would be one of the ways that it would move more completely into second and third tier. “– David

No, when e and other's say that samsara is cyclical, they don't mean that time goes in circles. It's a semantic issue here. If I were to ask you what you did today verses yesterday, how different would they be? A person, over a lifetime has developed a great many habits, and has been conditioned by the delusion of samsara. There's a Zen saying that points at this:
“A thought leads to an action, an action to a habit, a habit to a character, and a character leads to a destiny.”
The term cyclical samsara comes from the concept of the 12 stage chain of being, which is conceived as a circle, but that is just metephorical and conceptual nicety to help you understand the concept. In order to “get off the wheel,” so to speak you have to break any one of the parts which leads to the end of the cycle of birth and death. The quote is a simplafied version.
It goes like this, you see an object of awareness, and due to previous conditioning you either want it, want to repel it, or feel neutral towards it and this set the chain in motion through 12 stages, which lead back to the beginning and reinforce the entire process. Being a former drug addict, I know these step intimatly.
And yes, KW is absolutely right that the world of form evolves. I think if he used the modern Chaos theory in order to explain patterns and the input of creativity into the system, it work much better than saying “Spirit-in-action,” but that's his choice. Steve Hagen, calls it King Chaos, from an old Ch'an story:

King Chaos invited two other kings, Brief and Sudden, to visit him. Brief and Sudden accepted his invitation, but, knowing nothing about Chaos, they had no idea what to expect. Upon meeting Chaos, however, their concerns were immediately put to rest, for Chaos proved to be a very efficient and elegant host. He was prepared to provide for their every need, and he cared for them very well.
The guest kings were treated with great dignity, respect and consideration. Indeed, they were so impressed by the fine hospitality of Chaos that they talked between themselves of how they might repay Chaos for his kindness. For a long while they could not decide what to do.
They noticed, however, that there was something rather odd about King Chaos. He didn't have any holes in his head. There were no holes for his eyes, no did he have any ear openings, or nostrils, or  mouth. Chaos could not receive anything from the outside; he could no enjoy the world of the senses.
Not knowing the nature of Chaos, the guest kings heedlessly carried out their plan. Each day they drilled a hole, and Chaos did nothing to stop them. But at the end of the seventh day, after they finished drillign the seventh hole, King Chaos died.
———————————–

The story is saying that we live as Brief and Sudden, and like them we don't readily understand Chaos. And so, like these two kings, we try to impose our sense of what is desirable and good, our sense of order, upon Chaos. We try to impose our sense of order upon the world “out there,” upon what we take for reality.
Chaos in the story is the creative force in the universe. The random things that lead to patterns over time. The balance of an ecosystem, or a graded stream.

Now that is an ancient Chinese story and they built their agricultural system in a way that respected Chaos, and it was much more efficient and sustainable than any modern agricultural system. (Don't argue with me on this, I study agricultural systems as a student)

As KW has stated and I have stated in previous posts in this thread, the relative world of form is nothing but flux. There is nothing there that can be said to actually be there in any substancial way; as per the sutra in e's last post.
But, the different world that we find our selves in today, has absolutely nothing to do with an enlightened mind, because as KW also states, the world is ultimately the same. That is, the world is just as empty today as it was yesterday. So the stages of development aren't changed, the unfolding changes, but there is nothing but change.
The computer screen in front of me is no more or less empty of self than a rock. KW is talking about relative knowledge not wisdom, not ultimate wisdom. Often realtive knowledge is gained at the expense of wisdom.
People talk about atoms and quans, gravity and the nature of light, yet they really don't know any more about what any of these things are in an ultimate sense, than people did thousands of years ago. They feel a sense of certainty from this knowledge, but in fact they have used this knowledge to create a border of finality upon reality by saying they are the “laws of nature.” People in the past ended things with God. Now God and the laws of nature are just concepts, so people in the past actually had more of point of finality than we do today. We may have replaced God with the laws of nature and science, but these are just concepts and we know as much about the nature of one as we do about the other.

I'll quote it again from Physicist Nick Herbert, from his book, Quantum Reality.

“New quantum facts destroy the once sharp distinction between matter and field. With two magic quantum phrases we can… [turn] matter into field and vice versa. It's beginning to look as if everything is made of one substance- call it 'quantumstuff'- which combines particle and wave at once in a peculiar quantum style all its own.
The world is one substance. As satisfying as this discovery may be to philosophers, it is profoundly distressing to physicists as long as they do not understand the nature of that substance. For if quantumstuff is all there is and you don't understand quantumsruff, you ignorance is complete.”

So what is it what you think we know now that has any actual substance? Don't confuse the realative with the ultimate.

Re: Indigo Buddhism?

Holden said,
The main one that I wonder about is the repentance ceremony in Zen. But, as was explained to me by a few monks, the ceremony itself and all Zen ceremonies is kind of a template which is interpreted differently by each person and each person derives from it what they need depending on where they are on the path. Guilt, after all, can be an important tool when not dwelled upon, but used positively to foster proper future conduct.

I agree with that different people derive different benefit dependent upon their understanding, but nevertheless, the various practices and ceremonies define very specific teachings that, if penetrated, will reveal universal truths that relate to us all in a very exact way. The Buddha used skillful means to teach each according to their understanding but that never compromises a complete teaching that addresses the human predicament common to us all. Truths will be apprehended equally to us all as we come upon them.

Repentance is big in Christianity and we can learn much of from it from the teachings of Jesus. It is not so much about guilt but more of being/feeling convicted of our wrong doing/sin by our own awakened conscience. Then we can understand why Buddhism also would have this element in their teachings.

The founder of Aikido, Ueshiba, said this insightful note about shame:
“In Japan, the feeling of shame is regarded as a certain kind of sensitivity and, therefore, a virtue. How can we not feel shame if we ignore our divine nature and our true purpose in life? This is the origin of all shame. Real understanding of Aikido will only come about through daily purification (misogi) and through constantly striving for the creation of a better world.”

Re: Indigo Buddhism?

e said,
Mind has (at least) 2 aspects, infinite cognition and emptiness. These two aspects are not the same but they are not separate. The problem we have is with infinite cognition. Our awareness contracts and forms objects. Along with objects, a subject is apprehended where prior there was only emptiness i.e. I am over here and others/IT/Its are over there. Space now arises between the subject and object and there is now room for the two obscuring veils of thoughts and emotion to arise.

I'd like to take this further if I may. Bar from a deep insight into emptiness there never is any continious experience of only emptiness without its counterpart infinite cognition. From this we can realize there is no inherent “problem” with dualistic notions; near far, shallow deep, etc. As I look “out”, direction outwards, I see far. As I look in, within, I see depth. These perspectives from my vantage point can be directed by will anywhere. For example, once viewing a mountain valley from afar, I saw deep into that valley and considered “depth”; I'm here and the end of the valley is over there. I knew I could hike over there and look back on the place I had first been and say the same thing about depth but now in reverse. I actually don't have to trekk in order to do this experiment in myself. I can turn my eye sight inwards as if looking from without, and “look within”. This is a different way of apprehending sight. Usually I look with the usual conotation of looking out, outwards; I  see  you. I'm looking at you. Once I look within I see infinte space within, the same infinity I apprehend when looking without. One could say that looking out I see the manifest infinte Universe and looking within I see our infinte unmanifest nature. Now the trick is to look at both directions at the same time, cancelling eachother out, near and far, here and there, infinte depth, instantly brought to one point, here and now. Inside out and outside in. Form is emptiness and emptiness is form. Nirvana and samsara in one basket. No inside and no outside, just one magic place right here.

I think maybe this relates,
There is, there is not. Positive, negative. Views, convictions. All create proportional emotional experiences. As you view life so it appears to you, and so it will respond to you, affirming your view. Your view projects itself outwards, and like in a mirror, is reflected back in precise detail. And you say, “-See, I was right!”

What does it matter which view is true if the personal doesn't exist? Anything you are holding up fall within the realm of existence and non-existence. Freedom is not about choosing the positive over the negative. Freedom signifies freedom from belief in separate selfhood. Freedom being all one. Freedom signifies no boundaries, no limits. Freedom means nothing to protect nothing to justify. Freedom from self.

Basing yourself in a fundamental positive attitude towards life will most likely land you in heavenly realms. As the opposite will probably drag you through hell. If we are to believe the eastern religions, heaven is not forever, and neither is hell. So is there a middle way to freedom? Can you give up going to heaven? And renounce hell? Seeing that taking any kind of position will land you in its proportional effect. So therefore recognize your positions and be free from them.

Falling free you don't have to clutch air.

Re: Indigo Buddhism?

Hey Bjorn,

Keeping David's addtiions about evoloutionary enlightenment in mind, that is trying to push each other further, etc. The relative aspect (Infinite cognition) is our means to realize the ultimate aspect. It can be a hindrance however if we take our understanding solely from the relative aspect. So, I have no problems with spatial metaphors or practices, etc. as long as they are seen to be provisional. Same goes for terms like Original Mind, Ground of Being, Oneness, etc. etc. That is, anytime anyone of us who opens our mouths and talks about non-duality etc., we are only telling lies. With all that in mind, I still liked what you said in italics ! :-)

p&l,

e

Re: Indigo Buddhism?

I'm with you all the way, e. Thanks for responding. The Dharma only really comes alive when both relative and absolute is incorporated into one wholistic dramatic event. There is no gap. And then skillful means, including talking becomes Holy, or plain normal, depending on your sentiment.

Samsara being the fertile ground of Nirvana.

To study the Buddha way is to study the self. To study the self is to forget the self. To forget the self is to be enlightened by the ten thousand things.

Handle even a single leaf of green in such a way that it manifests the body of the Buddha. This in turn allows the Buddha to manifest through the leaf.

The color of the mountains is Buddha's body; the sound of running water is his great speech.

Those who see worldly live as an obstacle to Dharma see no Dharma in everyday actions; they have not discovered that there are no everyday actions outside of Dharma.

Mountains and rivers at this very moment are the actualization of the world of the ancient Buddhas. Each, abiding in its phenomenal expression, realizes completeness.

The true person is
Not anyone in particular;
But like the deep blue color
Of the limitless sky,
It is everyone,
Everywhere in the world.

Dogen

Re: Indigo Buddhism?

 Holden said: “Now that is an ancient Chinese story and they built their agricultural system in a way that respected Chaos, and it was much more efficient and sustainable than any modern agricultural system. (Don't argue with me on this, I study agricultural systems as a student.)”

I'm going to do it, Rick. I'm going to argue with you on that. :) Cradle-to-cradle to design is coming to China, and it is more efficient and sustainable than the ancient system you refer to. You can read about it here.

Holden said: “So what is it what you think we know now that has any actual substance? Don't confuse the realative with the ultimate.”

The idea about evolutionary spirituality involves becoming one with the energetic component running through life, creating life, evolving the manifest world, the evolutionary impulse. A. H. Almaas touches on it with his idea of the “optimizing force,” but perhaps doesn't develop it enough. Realizing emptiness and realizing the optimizing force (or the evolutionary impulse, the deeper psychic) are two different works. Realizing emptiness does not mean you have also realized the evolutionary impulse. Another way to look at it is this: a person can realize emptiness at Amber and then go out and do Amber things; a person can realize emptiness at Orange and then go out and do Orange things; and the point of evolutionary spirituality, one of them anyway, is to realize the highest stage in human evolution as well as emptiness. So, instead of realizing emptiness and going out and doing Amber things, you realize emptiness and go out and do Indigo things. It's a myth that once a person realizes emptiness everything they do will have the golden touch of the Buddha. In other words, there are Amber Buddhas, Orange Buddhas, and we have to be as high on that chart as we can go before we can be considered enlightened. So today, only Indigo Buddhas or so could truly be considered enlightened. That Amber Zen master might be emptier than the Buddha himself, but he's not enlightened.

Ken Wilber: 

“People have the impulse to let go when they experience emptiness, or the open nondual ground, but they don't always carry that radical inquiry forward. That's why you need a group of peers, a group of people who are pushing ahead of you, along with you. And every time someone seems to push further than you, you need to regard them as a teacher and then try to get your understanding up to that altitude–and it's a constant process because, once again, the world of form is evolving. The world of form may simply be lila, or the divine play, but each new game just happens to transcend and include the previous game. So there was an archaic game, then a magic game, then a mythic game, then a rational game, then a pluralistic game. And now God's playing a new game, an integral game, and moving into a super-integral game.

So we're asking in a sense for a double inquiry always, self-critical self-inquiry. What we're doing is inviting people to understand, first: Can you determine what stage you're at, what structure you're at, what level of consciousness you're at? And second: What are your state attainments? Do you have an understanding of formlessness? Do you have an understanding of nonduality, the ground of all being? Do you have an understanding that emptiness is one with form and that form is evolving? Simply seeing that will help you to objectify and help move you to higher levels. So judging one's level or altitude is not a negative judgment. It's a means of self-understanding and self-growth.

But we are also raising an alarm. Somebody who has an experience of an enlightened state of nonduality can point to the world at large and say, “Ah, you do not have this state of enlightenment; you are caught in an illusion,” and they would be right, because they're seeing a deeper state than the average person is seeing, and therefore they're critical of the average person. Well, in the same way, we can be critical of them if they are using that enlightenment but don't have an understanding of these structures. We can say, “You're caught in lower structures, and you're interpreting your reality through those structures. So you are caught in an illusion.” Even somebody who has an enlightenment experience can still be preaching the myth of the given. And preaching myths is not generally thought to be a good way to teach enlightenment. But understanding this allows both enlightenments to emerge–vertical and horizontal, a gauge of one's Fullness and one's Freedom.”

From this interview.

Re: Indigo Buddhism?

Hey Rick! Forget about what I said about cradle-to-cradle design. I looked into it a little more, and it turns out that cradle-to-cradle design was to some extent inspired by the ancient Chinese agricultural system you speak of. What McDonough and Branguart are doing is introducing, or re-introducing, those concepts to industrial, modern China. Anyway, all I was really trying to do was emphasize the importance of the evolutionary context. Generally our ways of doing things have improved, but it's interesting and important to look at things that have deteriorated, such as the modern world's destructive relationship with earth.

Re: Indigo Buddhism?

“Another way to look at it is this: a person can realize emptiness at Amber and then go out and do Amber things; a person can realize emptiness at Orange and then go out and do Orange things; and the point of evolutionary spirituality,”

No, this isn't true. This is taking AQAL to an absurd extreme. You cannot realize emptiness at amber or orange. The main characteristic defining Orange is a reification of a Decartesian materialism.
A real understanding of emptiness and the nature of all things doesn't happen until way up the spiral. You can begin to conceive of emptiness earlier, but you aren't going to go out and act in a way that supports that conceptual understanding. You may say to yourself, “All things are empty of a self, I read it and it is true,” but if you go out and act in the world in a way that is contrary to that understanding, then you don't understand it in a complete way.
The only way to get your CoG to that point is to meditate regularly and live in a way that creates the space needed for that kind of understanding. You aren't going to read a book and really understand the true nature of all things.
That's one the biggest problems with this Integral thing. A buch of people are reading second hand accounts of things, they don't actually change their lives, and they approach it in an intellectual way only. This isn't KW's fault, it just happens.
Once you begin to understand emptiness and karma and the nature of matter, concept, conditioning, etc… You are already at a point were you can see that there is a development of consciousness. The two go hand in hand. You can see that it is so simple, that the only reason you didn't get it before is because you mind was fundamentally set differently.
And while you get it, you can't explain it, any more than you can explain the color red.
The entire message that the Buddha brought changed over his lifetime. Each new lesson expanded upon the lesson before in a trancend and include model. He fundamentally understood this. E explained this already and posted a part of a sutra where the Buddha explained this clearly.
Everyone wants to reinvent the wheel though.

And I know about different researchers trying to reintroduce ancient argicultural practices back to their countries of origin. Anthropologists are running around and collecting as much info. as they can about every agri. practice, so they can improve the sustainability and efficientcy of agri. practices worldwide. We have learned that native practices evolved with the local environment for maximum yeild and sustainability. We know from many studies that an agri. practice will change, even within a single culture depending upon the nature of the ecosystem and patterns of exploitation. So there is a lot of complexity in what we call simple systems. Modern agri. practices have been proven to be one of the failings of orange. It isn't a romanticism of the past, it is a pragmatic and efficient realization of what works long term.
It's King Chaos. It's living with this creative force in the universe, and not trying to improve it.

Re: Indigo Buddhism?

Rick, I think we basically agree on things; we're just speaking a slightly different language. You might want to learn how Ken is differentiating between states and stages these days so that we do have a common language. This is a good place to start.

But let's talk about the sutra:

 “It is as if you are walking along one side of a stream and your way is hard fought with thickets, with bramble bushes with a rocky shoreline. And on the other side the way is open and clear and the path is easy. I merely offer a way to cross over to that other side.”

That's beautiful, but it seems to be in contradiction with the ideas expressed in this dialogue between Andrew Cohen and Ken Wilber:

 

AC: And you would agree that with the purification of the vehicle, there would be a gradual emergence of, shall we say, a profound sense of obligation or an ecstatic compulsion to give all of our heart and energy to the evolutionary process so that the liberated glory of our own absolute nature will emerge as ourselves, in this world.

KW: Absolutely. It can be said very simply; obviously it's very hard to embody. But the basic rule is: resting as emptiness, embrace the entire world of form. And the world of form is unfolding. It is evolving. It is developing. And therefore resting as blissful emptiness, you ecstatically embrace and push against the world of form as a duty.

AC: Right, push against it. That's the important part.

KW: Yes, absolutely.

From this interview.

Do you see a contradiction between the two?

Re: Indigo Buddhism?

Your misunderstanding the sutra David; and I was talking about the many leaves sutra, not the one that you quoted, it is before that one. There seems to be a general misunderstanding of not only Buddhism what of what is being talked about in various sutras or statements in this thread, and not just by you.
And, when KW states that a person can have a brief non-dual experience at any stage, that isn't the same as understanding emptiness. I know what he says about states and stages, and it isn't that someone understands emptiness and acts in Orange, etc… He states that they will interpret it via their current CoG. But, I think that is wrong, because there's no real way to interpret a non-dual experience from blue or orange, etc… Its like taking acid, you understand it when its happening, but when the trip is over you really can't descibe it in any real way.
The sutra is pointing to understanding the way things are, and it's doing so via metaphor. It's not saying that higher stages or development or getting off the wheel of birth and death is the end of samasara, and all is happiness and rainbows after your enlightened. It is saying that Samsara and Nirvana are not two.
When you understand the objects of your awareness are not real things, but in a way illusions, then one object of awareness isn't really different from another. Why grasp and choose when everything that is to be had bares the same nature.  You therefore embrace the entire world of form. You don't embrace it because it becomes wonderful, you just see what's actually going on and you no longer are attracted nor repelled by the objects of awareness.
In order to get to that point though, one must “cross to the other side,” as the sages say. As long as you are firmly grounded in delusion and ruled by dukka and samsara, you embrace only that which you have been conditioned over a lifetime or an evolutionary span of time, and reject all else, causing greed, anger, hate, war, etc…
The sutra is speaking to the individual and their journey upon the path and metaphorically asking that person why they choose to continue in a meaningless life of pain and conditioning; why not cross to the other shore.
KW and Cohen are speaking to the social nature of what happens when one does that.
It is a contrary concept to think that you can both understand the true nature of reality and at the same time ignore the suffering of others. 
“Embracing the Whole,” isn't really a good phrasing either, because you don't choose to embrace the Whole, you realize that you are no different than the Whole. It would be like saying that a section of black on a black sheet of paper decides to embrace the rest of the black.  When one understands the truth they don't embrace the Whole, they realize that there is no other way to be; that there really isn't a choice involved.
At the same time, that is not to say that one can't reject relative aspects of the Whole. You don't just become happy about war and famine one day either.
The only way to “give all of our heart and energy to the evolutionary process,” is to develop one's own understanding of the truth. Before true understanding it is all an act with a base of self interest.
The Buddha didn't become enlightened and become a hermit. He traveled for the rest of his life and dealt with all kinds of drama for the sake of the world.   

Re: Indigo Buddhism?

That sounds good, Rick.

Re: Indigo Buddhism?

  theurj:

Yes, returning to the beginning of the thread: What are some specific Buddhist doctrines and practices that are less than 2nd tier and why? And how are they made 2nd or 3rd tier? One of my earlier points was that do we just take them as they are, lower level and all, and merely recontextualize (interpret) them in an AQAL framework? Or (or in addition to) do the practices and doctrines themselves transform?

Let's get back to basics and if there is more interest, we can dig deeper. The 4 Noble Truths are in all the traditions. The first truth is the truth of suffering. Suffering can be broadened to mean dissatisfaction with existence. For us humans, is this not all of life in first tier? First tier is described as subsistence value memes. The self is trying to assert control over the environment but cannot. Why? Everything is changing and no static value system is capable of dealing with this change.

Second Noble Truth is the cause of suffering. We find that suffering arises within a causal nexus of conditionality. This is expressed in the 12 links of dependent origination. To begin to understand this deeply, a second tier systems mode of investigation must be engaged and one begins to see that ones experience is concocted or constructed (construct aware or Turquoise).

The 3^rd truth is the end of suffering. A radically changed view of experience. The Clear Light emptiness or the non-dual realization that there is no separate self that suffers. Experience is no longer of something i.e. Suchness or Thusness. All perspectives are seen thru or rendered transparent.

The 4^th truth is the path or way to the 3^rd truth. The 8 fold path at it's higher stations is  2^nd & 3^rd tier. Let's look at Turquoise. This is a communal value (SD wise) and is described as Globalview. A shift has taken place from Green. Ones inclusiveness is no longer strictly anthropocentric. One begins to see a commonality with ALL beings. The meditations on the 4 immeasurable are to help cultivate this value. There is a beautiful sutta where the Buddha explains how to cultivate these immeasurables and says as a mother loves her only child, so should you increase and radiate your love/compassion/joy/etc to ALL beings in all worlds everywhere without limit!! In the Buddhist vinaya the monks were not allowed to work in fields so they would not harm worms & insects, etc. The Buddha was ‘forcing' his followers to develop towards this second tier Turquoise cognition. In terms of conscious development, look at Cook-Greuter's highest stages of 3^rd tier development. Even she references the old traditions for Stage 6. How can this be? I thought these stages were only recent emergents? Let's look at Indigo. It is described as ego-aware. Ego is now considered object. The Buddha described 3 conceits of I AM, I am inferior/superior/equal. The last thing to go before one was considered enlightened in the old tradition was the conceit of I Am. Just think about this for a moment. The very thing that one is probably most sure of, this sense of self vs. others, the Buddha called it merely a conceit! Where does this cognitive ability to no longer view experience in terms of self-identity fall on Cook-Greuter's Self-Identity scale?

We can go thru epistemology or ontology (i.e. Integral Post Metaphysics) and show the 3^rd tier understandings of these Amber people :-). Let me know if there is any interest. So again, just because the teaching is wrapped in an Amber book cover does not mean the practices and attainments of the practitioners were stuck in Amber. He was called the Buddha for a reason!!

As far as transformation goes, I have seen it within Theravada, Zen and Tibetan over and over again. A person will come into a center nervous, anxious and fragmented, and sure as the light of day they begin to heal or become more whole via the dharma.

PS Holden, really liked your input in this thread. So glad you cleaned up your life and are on the path!! Those are two great things I never get tired of seeing!!

David, Holden pretty much answered the cyclical time question.

Re: Indigo Buddhism?

Did the Buddha understand the idea of evolution?

Re: Indigo Buddhism?

e wrote: “PS Holden, really liked your input in this thread. So glad you cleaned up your life and are on the path!! Those are two great things I never get tired of seeing!!”

Really? I was comparing my explanation with yours and feel a little shamed. I haven't put in the work that many of the people here have to know all of the labels, phrasings, and exact orders of things.  I understand this stuff, but I explain it in layman's terms. When reading a sutra, about Buddhism or AQAL, I tend to read over foreign words, names, etc… I get the heart of what's being said, but later I have a hard time with those aspects.
That, and it's been years since I studying this stuff in detail. I've been trying to focus more on actual practice and direct experience of the Dharma.
I had the experience today of visiting with a former Baptist minister, who is now a geologist and Zen practitioner. He brings the same zeal of his former bible study to his Zen practice and it was hard to keep up with all the sutra names and lists he was throwing out. I've noticed that when two or more lay Buddhist practitioners get together, there is often a subtle pretext of testing each other's knowledge of the Dharma in the back ground. Its like a secret handshake to know who's in the club.

Re: Indigo Buddhism?

e: “So, I have no problems with spatial metaphors or practices, etc. as long as they are seen to be provisional. Same goes for terms like Original Mind, Ground of Being, Oneness, etc. etc. That is, anytime anyone of us who opens our mouths and talks about non-duality etc., we are only telling lies. With all that in mind, I still liked what you said in italics ! :-)”

Very true. I have to admit that there are many Dharma groups that I've been too, the most recent is the best case in point, where there isn't a lot of depth to the teachings that is available without searching. The Japanese Rissho Kosei-kai lay group that is by my apartment, holds services on Sunday morning and it really isn't much different than what you'd experience going to any church. Well a church filled with green meme people, anyway.
This was very similar to a retreat I did outside Kyoto with a famous Rin-zai master. If you already knew that there was deeper meaning and you did a lot of self-study, and if you stuck around a long time (one year costs 10,000 dolls.), you'd no doubt get a lot, but a lot is taken for granted.
The group that I've mentioned above has a Lotus sutra study group on Fridays, but you aren't gonna learn that if you just go on Sunday.
Actually, Japanese Buddhism on a whole, is so entrenched in politics and the economy that most people are monks because their fathers were monks. Its like a family business.
Much of it is arranged in a spiritual stew of Confucianism and Shinto, and largely 1st tier.
There are some really enlightened teachers there, but on a whole the system is what KW and other's have noted.
But, that is what is wonderful about American Buddhism. The new shape that Buddhism is taking in the U.S. is one of a demystified Buddhism, with much of the 1st tier cultural baggage is being stripped away. That's only because it is coming into a country with a 2nd tier population, whereas it evolved in Asian countries a thousand or more years ago with no 2nd tier pops. to speak of.
Even at the Rissho Kosei-kai lay group, the Dharma talk was from a former Baptist minister and he spoke from an article about artificial intelligence and the two aspects of cognition. I was impressed by that. Of course, the complete lack of discipline during the meditative session was disturbing, along with the New Age music being piped in during the session.
So an honest answer to David's question about the how to move certain practices to the 2nd and 3rd tier, would include that all the practices are already there, but should all include a disclaimer that they are all pointing at higher truths. This fact is neither assumed in Asia, nor in the west.

Re: Indigo Buddhism?

Hey David,

Yes, the idea of deep time was there. But why the hubbub with evolution?

Hey Holden,

What I liked about your input was you did not hold your opinions so tightly
and you shot from the hip while sharing what you know. I just have a decent
memory and can relate ideas fairly well.

Re: your last post. Yeah the dharma is hidden in plain site.

Bjorn : The Dharma only really comes alive when both relative and absolute is incorporated into one wholistic dramatic event.

That is just the story we tell the kids to keep them interested, right? I mean, that is not ‘really' happening as there never has been a gap.  Beautiful Dogen quote.


peace

e

Re: Indigo Buddhism?

e said: “Yes, the idea of deep time was there.”

How do we know this? Ken doesn't think so.

“But why the hubbub with evolution?”

Thanks for asking! The idea of evolution–as an operating principle rather than just an attractive theory–is necessary to really know what's of value. Without it, one could get caught up in all sorts of things that seem to be of value but really aren't of value because they're not contributing to structures in consciousness–things that will have some lasting value in the manifest realm–or lasting value in terms of soul development (subtle realm). For example, without evolution as an operating principle, one could fall into all sorts of narcisistic fears and desires in the upper left, and in the lower left we could fall into some kind of relativism or valuing surface peace over deep growth.

In other words, without evolution as an operating principle, we won't really know what is right speech, right action, etc. We won't have a very good moral compass.

Evolution also comes into play with the model Ken sometimes uses involving a frontal self, deeper psychic, and witness. Hokai posted it once:


Two of these lines don't give a damn about evolution–the frontal and the witness–and one cares passionately about it, the deeper psychic. So, if our most basic model for the self is frontal self (ego) and witness, or ignorance and enlightenment, then it's missing a big part of the picture.

Wilber: The grain of the Kosmos is the moral compass. The whole point about morality is that it follows the Eros or the grain of the universe. And that grain right now is the evolutionary unfolding. That's where the moral compass is oriented. So you try to say, “I'm going to get with the evolutionary impulse,” because the evolutionary impulse is increasing wholeness, increasing care, increasing compassion, and increasing consciousness. That's the moral compass by which we're making judgments. And the Authentic Self, the deeper psychic, is the one that is relaying that to us.

Re: Indigo Buddhism?

Just a little addition/clarification: the above figure is not meant to indicate that the Witness itself evolves. What evolves is the ways to access the Witness, as Ken explains in a footnote in Integral Psychology.

I was wondering lately how there could be a causal line of self development, while the causal is timeless and formless. So that footnote solved that for me.

Peter

Re: Indigo Buddhism?

Thank you for that addition, Peter. One more important point: Aurobindo considered the deeper psychic not a part of samsara but rather an aspect of divinity, an aspect of the witness. In the last article I linked, Andrew Cohen put it like this:  

“What's most important to me, and I believe to you, is evolutionary spirituality, evolutionary enlightenment–spiritual transformation in an evolutionary, developmental context. And it's the creative component in relationship to awakening itself that is so compelling, so interesting, and so fascinating. Most significantly, it's the nondifference between the enlightened perspective, directly seen, known, and felt, and the arising of a spontaneous compulsion to create, to make manifest that which is being seen.”

Re: Indigo Buddhism?

You know the word evolution literally just means to change. It doesn't assume a directional change. And, to say that the universe is creative is to also say that the specific change isn't a given, as creativity means to create the new and… well… creative.
So if all this unfolding is just becoming aware of what was always there then how is that wholly creative?
Just throwing out some thoughts.

Re: Indigo Buddhism?

That is just the story we tell the kids to keep them interested, right? I mean, that is not ‘really' happening as there never has been a gap. 

Yes e, but you know, most “spiritual” aspirants keeps tripping this one up. Even though the Dharma is most natural thing, this “natural” thing is so extremly rare so when it comes around everyone is shaken awake. Even though we all always act in accordance with the natural doesn't mean we all use it properly. We clutch air as we fall free, desperately trying to stay our fall. This is the insanity that all the Buddhas come to eleviate.

About spiritual evolution,

This is, in my understanding, taking our realization of Oneness to a higher level amongst others. It is a communial event, not something we can evolve into ourselves alone. If Unity is the ultimate standard, separation has to go. So far we have individuals that understand this oneness and tries to help the suffering rest out of their limited personal perspective into a larger whole encompassing experience. This is inherent in our make up already but we need to “realize” it together. The natural consequence of spiritual awakenings are communities; the Buddhas sangha, the Church etc. This is a natural conscious or unconscious move away from separation towards greater unity. As drops of mercury flows into eachother merging and creating a larger whole.

Andrew Cohen describes this process and pushes for this to happen in his community. It is not difficult to appreciate the mechanics and dynamics of this natural coming together. Of course, it is not a painfree, or fault free process. We are not used to live as one so it takes a lot of learning of what it means.

As we learn of our part in a bigger whole we grow personally as well because we stop resisting our fundamental membership to the whole. We join the oneness of humanity and now become a driving force to incorporate any missing link. For the sake of the whole. For the sake of unity, peace and love, that will enable a much more fruitful movement forward in time together. This is never ending, as we can see the movement towards separation is still going strong and we'll never be out of work.

It is ever new, because what we manifest has never before seen the light of day. We wake up to a brand new Universe each day. We unfold and co-create a future that has never before been. Fundamental essence yes, Unity yes, never needs to be invented or created but our conscious awareness of it and living in harmony with it needs to be developed. And as Dogen said, we contribute to awaken all things by awakening ourselves.

And the direction is clear; in regards to the true Dharma it is in the direction of higher unity, towards peace and well being. But in regards to the “world” it is in the direction of ego, personal gain, personal fame. The whole wants to create what is whole. God realize God. make the unmanifest come manifest.

This creativity is the urge of the unmanifest being/nature to come alive. We feel this urge in ourselves, and to the extent we don't corrupt and limit it with the conceit of “I” we are acting in line with a more unified theory of everything.

That's why the Buddha told Ananda that the Sangha is the whole of the spiritual life (not just the 50% that Ananda had expressed).

Upwards and onwards…

Re: Indigo Buddhism?

If anyone is interested, I just posted a new blog entry on Integral Time-Space-Knowledge, which looks at TSK as a postmetaphysical Integral Life Practice.  The TSK vision has a number of things in common with Buddhism, but also incorporates modern and postmodern perspectives and approaches.  For this blog, I wove together a number of my writings to try to give an overall picture of how I understand TSK as an ILP.  Given its similarities to Buddhism, I think it is relevant to this overall discussion. 

I'd appreciate your feedback, if anyone is interested, since this is something I'm still exploring and working on “fleshing out.”

Best wishes,

B.

Re: Indigo Buddhism?

e said: “Yes, the idea of deep time was there.”

David said: How do we know this? Ken doesn't think so.

I talked about this above already. Here is one of the 3 insight knowledges the Buddha is said to have had on the eve of his enlightenment…

“When the mind was thus concentrated, purified, bright, unblemished, rid of defilement, pliant, malleable, steady, & attained to imperturbability, I directed it to the knowledge of recollecting my past lives. I recollected my manifold past lives, i.e., one birth, two… five, ten… fifty, a hundred, a thousand, a hundred thousand, many eons of cosmic contraction, many eons of cosmic expansion, many eons of cosmic contraction & expansion: 'There I had such a name, belonged to such a clan, had such an appearance. Such was my food, such my experience of pleasure & pain, such the end of my life. Passing away from that state, I re-arose there. There too I had such a name, belonged to such a clan, had such an appearance. Such was my food, such my experience of pleasure & pain, such the end of my life. Passing away from that state, I re-arose here.' Thus I remembered my manifold past lives in their modes & details.”

OK so you feel Ken and Andrew understand evolutionary enlightenment outside of just a theoretical Darwinian approach to spiritual unfolding. Forget about just one past life ago, ask them what they ate for lunch 1 month ago and see if they ‘know'.

And so Ken's criticism of the Buddha are valid, he could not drive a jeep. But I bet he could drive the hell out of a chariot! Can Ken, can he, huh, can he huh? LOL :-)


———-


Bjorn…sounds real good buddy…I hope it lasts for you!!

love

e

Re: Indigo Buddhism?

Well, I think the Buddha is arguably the greatest realizer of all time. The teachings he put together out of nothing practically are so amazing. There's nothing like it. But I don't see what there is in that quote that reflects an understanding of the evolutionary unfolding. Just a touch, maybe, but I think an indigo Buddhism would have an understanding more like this:

“In conscious evolution, our spiritual experience expands to include resonance with the design of evolution. Our spiritual growth awakens our social potential, pressing us deeper inward to pick up that design and outward to express our creativity in the world through vocation. We work from within ourselves toward higher consciousness, greater freedom, and more complex order to effect a change in the world, first and foremost through our personal evolution…. With conscious evolution we are on the threshold of a cocreative spirituality as we learn to attune to the deeper patterns of creation.”

–Barbara Marx Hubbard

Re: Indigo Buddhism?

David, calling something evolutionary enlightenment isn't really saying anything. It's just adding the word evolution to enlightenment. It is clear in Buddhist texts that mind is antecedent to matter and form and therefore anything that would or could evolve. To say that we will some how become conscious and directive participants with evolution is to say that we can understand the countless variables that go into every manifest phenomenon, not just one, but all of them. The only way to be able to do that is to get every person alive to an enlightened state of Buddha-hood. But, then they will realize that the whole is already complete and doesn't need our interference. Chaos, or spirit-in-action, is already got things taken care of, and doesn't need us fucking with the Whole. The drive to improve the Whole is not a 3rd tier drive, its a 1st tier one, and its why were are in so much trouble today.
So far, nothing you've talked about isn't covered in standard Buddhist philosophy of enlightenment, mixed with an Orange drive to improve upon what's already perfect.
All the things that we have to improve are things that we caused in the first place.
But more than that, it seems that your reifying time as though it actually exists apart from consciousness itself.
If you had listened to interview with that cosmologist on NPR that I posted, you'd know that every action that you ever take in your life will effect everything that happens in the past, present and future. So I don't see how we have any choice, but to co-created manifest Reality and the “deeper patterns of creation.”
BTW, it sounds like Hubbard is mixing the 8 fold path, with creationism. And, if you posit a creator then you have an infinite regress of creators.

Re: Indigo Buddhism?

David, calling something evolutionary enlightenment isn't really saying anything. It's just adding the word evolution to enlightenment. It is clear in Buddhist texts that mind is antecedent to matter and form and therefore anything that would or could evolve. To say that we will some how become conscious and directive participants with evolution is to say that we can understand the countless variables that go into every manifest phenomenon, not just one, but all of them. The only way to be able to do that is to get every person alive to an enlightened state of Buddha-hood. But, then they will realize that the whole is already complete and doesn't need our interference. Chaos, or spirit-in-action, is already got things taken care of, and doesn't need us mucking with the Whole. The drive to improve the Whole is not a 3rd tier drive, its a 1st tier one, and its why were are in so much trouble today.
So far, nothing you've talked about isn't covered in standard Buddhist philosophy of enlightenment, mixed with an Orange drive to improve upon what's already perfect.
All the things that we have to improve are things that we caused in the first place.
But more than that, it seems that your reifying time as though it actually exists apart from consciousness itself.
To quote top physicist Roger Penrose:
“The temporal ordering that we 'appear' to perceive is… something that we impose upon our perceptions in order to make sense of them in relation to the uniform forward time-progression of an external physical reality.”

Then Nick Herbert, another famous physicist:
“The objective world simply is; it does not happen. Only to the gaze of my consciousness, crawling upward along the life line of my body, does a section of this world come to life as a fleeting image which continuously changes in time.”

So, if you look at the frames of a film of a tadpole turning into a frog, you would never find a point in the film to point at and say that in one there is a tadpole and in the next there is a frog. It is the same when digging up bone of hominids to try to figure out which is a human and which is not yet.
We don't experience evolutionary time, we experience NOW. Now can't be conceptualized or grasped. We can't take now and bend it to our wills to produce a certain form of spirituality in the future.  To attune ourselves to a deeper understanding of Reality, we end our intent.
Can you tell me a better way to attune ourselves to Reality better than to come to a clearer understanding of Reality? Is a co-creative spirituality one that moves to end suffering, anger, hatred, greed and delusion? If so, then we got you covered.

If you had listened to interview with that cosmologist on NPR that I posted, you'd know that every action that you ever take in your life will effect everything that happens in the past, present and future. So I don't see how we have any choice, but to co-created manifest Reality and the “deeper patterns of creation.”
BTW, it sounds like Hubbard is mixing the 8 fold path, with creationism. And, if you posit a creator then you have an infinite regress of creators.

Also, I deleted that first post, and it didn't go away.

Re: Indigo Buddhism?

With an egocentric perspective, the individual tries to improve himself; with an ethnocentric perspective the person also tries to improve his ethnicity, his religion, his nation; with a worldcentric perspective one also tries to improve the world; with a Kosmocentric perspective one also tries to improve the Kosmos. So it's really not until third tier that a person begins trying to improve the world as a primary motivation.

Re: Indigo Buddhism?

As I understand it, the worldcentric perspective starts to show up even in first tier, with Orange and Green.

Re: Indigo Buddhism?

As far as I have been informed, our business is eachother and this planet. The rest of the Universe is still a bit out of range for me. But maybe that's why I can't wait to go and see my hero, the Silver Surfer on the big screen.

Joke aside, every Buddhas business, every Messias commission, and ultimately our very own deepest mission, is to take complete resposibility for every living souls welfare, and to care for the planet as well. This will never be  outdated as it is part and parcel of a Buddhas make up. In fact, if we want to advance we need to consider others. Only through a larger ability to shoulder greater resposibility will we deepen our understanding of what the meaning of life is all about. This, in return yields progress for all humankind, called evolution. This is why the Mahayana incorporated the Bodhi citta vow into the monk initiation vows, I believe. I also believe firmly this is what Jesus is pointing towards when he is said to die for everybody else. This sacrifice holds tremendous value if understood properly.

Spiritual evolution, I believe is not something new. The Bible itself is a testimony for an evolutionary movement through time. A movement towards greater harmony, greater understanding, greater communion. Slowly mankind is able to open up to , take in more, appreciate greater vistas, incorporate it into society etc etc. But as you are all so aware of, it is being resisted every inch of the way.

Andrew describes this emerging evolution into a greater wholeness among people, more aligned to our non-dual common ground. Of course, all and every action promps their own effects and will partake in the unfolding of the future. That makes it even more important that we live to reach higher. Our little contribution can add up to a major shift. Even if I fail miserably, it won't have to deter me.

Look at the Buddhas impact. Enormous. Jesus, one man changed the western world. That is evolution by intent. We can let it happen (as time does not stop) or/and we can participate in its unfolding (for better or worse I guess we do anyway).

Re: Indigo Buddhism?

I see what your saying David, but you need to look past just what KW says about this process towards the more direct sources, if you are to really understand the foundations of what is meant to be accomplished in the history of Buddhist practice.  For some reason you are saying that Buddhism needs to do something that it is alreay founded upon. This tells me that you don't really understand the cores of Buddhist doctrine.
Bjorn, as brought up Kuan Yin in other threads, and I feel this to relivent here. Kuan Yin is a mythical Bodhisattva in Mahayana, which is supposed to represent compassion, or this evolutionary drive you speak of. Kuan Yin is said to have ten thousand arms, which in Buddhist terminology, just represents the ten thousand things or the whole of the multiplicity of form, i.e., everything you can see.
Anway, statues of Kuan Yin never have that many arms, but have a lot, and they are each holding a different tool or symbol. Each tool or symbol is something which is available to Kuan Yin for the immediate need of individuals that are sufferieng. This means that, whatever in the world of form is causing suffering, Kuan Yin has the remedy for it. The response is immediate and perfectly situated to that individual situation. This means that Kuan Yin acts in accordance with what is actually going on, and brings to whatever situation he finds himself in, the more pragmatic, direct and perfect thing to bring the end of suffering to that situation. Kuan Yin doesn't force that situation to be a way that it is not, but acts within the situation to bring about the end of greed, anger and delusion, i.e., suffering.

Now, Kuan Yin is just the Chinese name for the Indian Avelokeshivara (sp?)  who  also has other names in other countries.
The fact is, that the only way to bring about any kind of positive evolution, is to understand that one must act like Kuan Yin. Not forcing situations to be other than they are, as we already do with havoc as a result, but through wisdom, compassion and enlightenment.
It is to understand that the Chaos or Spirt-in-action that takes place in the process of evoltion is alreay perfect, already taking care of the Whole. Any evolutionary enlightenment necessitates that we act in accordance with this, and not think that we can ever improve upon that which we can never completely understand.
As a contrary way of understanding all this David, I suggest a forth movement to your evolutionary enlightenment, from an ancient Sanskritt tablet unearthed by archaeologists in India:

When I was a young man, I vowed to change the world and found it was beyond me; when I was a married man, I vowed to change my state and found that it was beyond my means; when I grew older I vowed to change my city and could not; as I grew older still I vowed to change my family and even that was beyond my control. Then as I understood rightly, I changed myself and the whole world changed at that moment. [paraphrase]

I already quoted the Bodhidharma in this thread, but I'm posting it again to make the point and hopefully end this:

Now you tell disciples merely to behold the mind. How can anyone reach enlightenment without cultivating the rules of discipline?

The three sets of precepts are for overcoming the three poisoned states of mind, When you overcome these poisons, you create three sets of limitless virtue, A set gathers things together-in this case, countless good thoughts throughout your mind. And the six paramitas are for purifying the six senses. What we call paramitas you call means to the other shore. By purifying your six senses of the dust of sensation, the paramitas ferry you across the River of Affliction to the Shore of Enlightenment.

According to the sutras, the three sets of precepts are, “I vow, to put an end to all evils. I vow to cultivate all virtues. And I vow to liberate all beings.” But now you say they’re only for controlling the three poisoned states of mind.

Isn’t this contrary to the meaning of the scriptures?

The sutras of the Buddha are true. But long ago, when that great bodhisattva was cultivating the seed of enlightenment, it was to counter the three poisons that he made his three vows. Practicing moral prohibitions to counter the poison of greed, he vowed to put an end to all evils. Practicing meditation to Counter the poison of anger, he vowed to cultivate all virtues. And practicing wisdom to counter the poison of delusion, he vowed to liberate all beings. Because he persevered in these three pure practices of morality, meditation, and wisdom, he was able to overcome the three poisons and reach enlightenment. By overcoming the three poisons he wiped out everything sinful and thus put an end to evil. By observing the three sets of precepts he did nothing but good and thus cultivated virtue. And by putting an end to evil and cultivating virtue lie consummate all practices, benefited himself as well as others, and rescued mortals everywhere. Thus he liberated beings.

You should realize that the practice you cultivate doesn’t exist apart from your mind. If your mind is pure, all buddha-lands are pure. The sutras say, “if their minds are impure, beings are impure. If their minds are pure, beings are pure,” And “To reach a buddha-land, purify your mind. As your mind becomes pure, buddha-lands become pure.” Thus by overcoming the three poisoned states of mind the three sets of precepts are automatically fulfilled.

Re: Indigo Buddhism?

“As I understand it, the worldcentric perspective starts to show up even in first tier, with Orange and Green.”

Yes, I thought someone might want to say something like that after I posted. What I mostly wanted to establish there was that the drive to improve the world is not something that appears in first tier and vanishes by third tier as someone said but actually only grows stronger as you go up.

But the more important point is that seeing worldcentric is not enough for a person to make the evolution and happiness of people, animals, institutions, etc. his reason for living. Orange and Green still tend to be awfully self-involved, self-interested. They still have a tendency to do what feels good to them, personally, at crucial moments, when the chips are really down. This is why, for example, all these Orange and Green CEOs are making so much money and their employees are feeling cheated. In the affect charts in Integral Psychology you'll find “saintly commitment” and “boddhisatvic compassion” in third tier. That's when you're really feeling Worldcentric or Kosmocentric and therefore acting on it–as a way of life. As I said, “so it's really not until third tier that a person begins trying to improve the world as a primary motivation.”

The point about evolution is just that an understanding of it–as a day-to-day, moment-to-moment operating principle (though with deeper psychic it is not conceptual but simply the nature of it)– really clarifies what is positive or negative. It's true that spiritual evolution is not something new, but holding evolution as an operating principle, especially as a means of realizing the deeper psychic as fully as possible, is something new.


Rick said: “It is to understand that the Chaos or Spirt-in-action that takes place in the process of evoltion is already perfect, already taking care of the Whole.” There is an awful lot of truth to this (as well as many of the other things you said), for sure. It's quite amazing how the thing works–if the neo-Darwinists only knew! I understand why Ramana Maharshi said, “The Self is perfect.” But Aurobindo understood that things can and should be “more perfect,” though I know the word is an absolute. Ramana Maharshi, as great as he was, could not provide convincing answers when questioned about Aurobindo. Things are more perfect when people make a conscious choice to evolve (which is ultmatiely accomplished by an extraordinarily passive and yet strenuous approach) and take a conscious, pro-active approach in life (however witnessing or “surrendered” the person may be) when necessary. To say that Spirit-in-action is taking care of it and we don't have to participate (I'm not saying that you are saying this, Rick) is dualistic. It puts ourselves apart from the whole process. I like the expression Spirit-in-action better than Chaos because whatever-we-want-to-call-it has created very similar patterns all over the world, all moving towards greater levels of harmony and integration and complexity.

Re: Indigo Buddhism?

As I have suspected David, we are really talking about the same thing and seeing eye to eye.
Perhaps I am missing something because I know little to nothing about Aurobindo, beyond what KW talks about.
I would have to say the term “more perfect” is a relativistic concept that implies an “other.”
When you are talking about making things more perfect, then you are stepping out of the Buddhist paradigm, so I was wrong to say that Buddhism covers everything that you were talking about.
Can you elaborate upon this “more perfect,” and define it as opposed to what exactly?
From my perspective, it seems that all problems that we face are caused by us and not some separate nature or Spirit-in-action or evolution, so it seems that the solutions lie within getting people to stop doing and seeing things in a way that does not conform to reality, more than getting them to do anything specifically or positvely.

Re: Indigo Buddhism?

Hi y’all

It’s been so great to arrive home after more than two weeks away at a Dzogchen teaching and practice retreat and find waiting for me this wonderful thread, comprised as it is of so many fine individual filaments. I honour each and every contributor who’s kept this discussion moving along and provided such a wealth of material for us all to ponder on, mull over, have our perspectives shifted by (or not).

theurj, thanks so much for getting this thread off the ground. Some while back I considered opening a thread questioning the notion seemingly held by a number of integral-minded folk that Buddhism belongs in Amber. I reluctantly passed on this because (and I’m not being self-effacing here) I’m not a scholar, have never been an academic, and don’t consider myself to have enough intellectual capacity or weight to present the ideas that would have been necessary for the starting of such a thread, let alone taking responsibility for its stewardship. And I know I probably would have been on the defensive from the outset, whereas you’ve boldly jumped in at a rather stylish indigo – I’ll leave it for someone else to try and get their heads around ultra-violet and beyond. M’ friend, I’ve really been enjoying your contributions since you surfaced here – both here in the pod and on Open Integral. I admire the way you present your ideas, every now and then pulling extra-special white rabbits out of that seemingly bottomless hat of yours, as exemplified by your quoting of kela re. the different “versions” of non-duality in the second of your June 14^th postings. I’ve found myself less than enamoured by the way in which the four states are presented in general, as for example in IS, particularly the non-dual state, finding the way it’s viewed and referred to lacking in dimensionality, quite flatland really (if I’m not using this term inappropriately), so it was refreshing and rather exciting to read this material distinguishing so clearly the different non-dual “views”. We’ve talked about the non-dual “state” quite a lot in this pod, as if we’re all talking about the same thing, but until now I haven’t read anyone (including myself) alluding to the notion that there might be more than one version of a non-dual “point of view” knocking around the Kosmos, let alone pointing out what the differences are, so this post of yours was extremely welcome.

holden, I’ve so appreciated your contributions, where you’re coming from, your shooting from the hip. What you’ve been saying rings clear and true for me, and I’ve been grateful for the cogent quotes from Bodhidharma, as well as the various physicists/mathematicians you’ve quoted, in equal measure.

e  … for erudition, elucidation … and more than a little enigma … I’ve similarly been appreciating what you’ve been bringing to the table. I’m particularly grateful for the quotes from the various suttas. The dharma teachings I’ve received over the years have, with the odd exception, been from Tibetan lamas who have, one and all, displayed extremely deep reverence for Buddha Shakyamuni, to the extent that this reverence has been transferred to me as if by osmosis. These days however I don’t very often hear quoted what the Buddha actually said, the language and examples he used, so these quotes have brought the Buddha into my living room, and helped me remember why I was smitten so in the first place. I beg to differ with you in one regard, though, re. your “ … anytime anyone of us who opens our mouths and talks about non-duality etc., we are only telling lies” … even though I know exactly what you mean … no lies bro, just words about, pointing at, alluding to.

And Bjorn, Bruce, David et al, kudos for what you’ve brought too.

As for what else I have to say here, for starters I have to confess I find it a little ironic, in view of the way in which “things metaphysical” are deemed to be so unacceptable to KW et al, that the Heart Sutra is given such a prominent position, in IS and in this pod. I am all for it getting good press and good coverage, but can’t help but be aware of the scant attention that’s given to the setting for this sutra – who was giving the teaching, who was said to be present etc. So it wasn’t the historical Buddha giving this discourse to his monks and nuns, but one of his disciples Shariputra, “ .. through the power of the Buddha …” (who was sitting absorbed in “the samadhi that expresses the dharma called “profound illumination””) who put to the bodhisattva mahasattva Avalokiteshvara the question: “How should a son or daughter of noble family train, who wishes to practice the profound prajnaparamita?” And Avalokiteshvara replied with the now well-known words. So who was/is this Avalokiteshvara? According to Mahayana Buddhism he was once a bodhisattva on the path who attained the full enlightenment of a Buddha,  and  “since then” the Dharmakaya has manifested directly the four-armed and thousand-armed forms we know so well to beings such as mahasiddhas, who have the capacity to perceive Sambhoghakaya manifestations, transmitting to them Avalokiteshvara's tantra, “his” Vajrayana methods for enlightenment. What was he doing at Vulture Peak mountain? According to Mahayana Buddhism he was in effect “posing” as a human disciple of the Buddha, but in reality was the “Buddha of Compassion”, as we like to call him, all along, emanated in human form. Who else was present for this teaching? According to the text I’ve been quoting from, there were “… a great gathering of the sangha of monks and a great gathering of the sangha of bodhisattvas” present, not to mention “ … the world with its gods, humans, asuras, and gandharvas” who rejoiced at the Buddha’s praise of Avalokiteshvara’s teaching, saying as he did … “Good, good, O son of noble family; thus it is, O son of noble family, thus it is. One should practice the profound prajnaparamita just as you have taught and all the tathagatas will rejoice.”

So, are we to think that it was really the Buddha all along saying these words to none but human disciples 2500 years ago in the mythic/amber period … or do we take this Mahayana sutra at face value?

I don’t know the correct term for this type of teaching of the Buddha (for that’s exactly how it’s held within Mahayana Buddhism) but it’s along the lines of “the words or teaching of the Buddha given through the Buddha’s permission”. There are other such teachings of the Buddha Shakyamuni, including, rather pertinently, the teachings of Garab Dorje, the first human teacher, within Buddhism, of Dzogchen (he was of course pre-dated by Shenrab Miwoche, the founder of Bon, who also transmitted Dzogchen teachings).

According to one of the Mahayana sutras (I can’t cite the source, but have it on very good authority) Buddha Shakyamuni predicted the future coming of Garab Dorje and his teaching of Dzogchen, “the doctrine beyond cause and effect”, and in doing so it is made clear that the teachings of Garab Dorje are “the words of the Buddha by his permission”. Within the Dzogchen teaching, Garab Dorje is held to be an emanation of Shakyamuni Buddha. He is also said as a young child to have been heard spontaneously reciting a Dzogchen tantra never heard before, the “Vast Spaciousness of Vajrasattva” root tantra. He is said to have been overheard by the highest panditas in the kingdom pf Oddiyana, who couldn’t understand the meaning but recognised its profound importance. They informed the then top gun pandita of Nalanda University in northern India, Manjushrimitra, who had already heard that some upstart child was teaching a doctrine “beyond cause and effect”. Manjushrimitra set off with his fellow panditas to put him in his place by defeating him in debate, was himself won over at their first meeting, becoming his heart disciple, and the person who wrote down the three series of the Dzogchen teachings that have been transmitted and taught to this day.

One thing I would like to say vis a vis all the talk of different, seemingly competing philosophical views … within Mahayana Buddhism at least it is held that the different Buddhist philosophical schools’ views and teachings were all taught by the Buddha to meet/address people’s (i.e. adherents) different propensities and capacities. An example of skilful means. Dzogchen itself doesn’t have a philosophical point of view … although it does have its tau.wa. gom.pa and choe.pa, i.e. view meditation and attitude, its view is nothing less than Dzogchen itself, the self-perfected state itself.

With all the talk of emptiness/shunyata, non-dual emptiness, Emptiness and Form with this Form evolving etc. it is worth bearing in mind that Dzogchen does have something quite unique within Buddhist teaching, equal emphasis and place being given to calm (nas.pa) / Emptiness, expressed in the Dzogchen teaching as “primordial purity” (ka.dag) and to movement – the movement of energy, the movement of thought, the movement of manifestation coming into being, expressed in the Dzogchen teaching as “spontaneous self-perfected presence/manifestation” (lhun.drub).

Dzogchen, aka “the self-perfected state”, is qualified by what’s known as the “Three Wisdoms”. It’s Essence is Emptiness/Shunyata (ka.dag /“primordial purity”), its Nature is Clarity (lhun.drub /“spontaneously self-perfected presence/manifestation”) and its Energy is the Inseparability (yer.med) of these first two, without interruption (gag.med). The Dzogchen teaching certainly talks about non-duality, but doesn’t talk about “Oneness”, preferring to talk of “Inseparability”. And when talking of the primordial state (i.e. the state of Dzogchen) of 100 individuals) it doesn’t refer to them as being all One, but as being individual yet of the same nature. This paradox is symbolised in the example of 100 bowls of water each carrying their own individual reflection of the moon … yet there being just one moon.

It’s been really gratifying for me to read holden and e placing Buddhism well into 3^rd tier (at least) and backing this up with argument. My teacher describes Dzogchen as the essence of the Buddhist teaching. He’s not being superior or elitist, just calling a spade a spade. Someone earlier in the thread referred to the Buddha not being understood when he first started to teach. This is because he was trying to communicate the real condition or true nature/primordial state of the individual, and nobody then had the capacity to understand this “knowledge”. So he came to what they could understand and the rest, as they say, is history. A synonym for Dzogchen, one I’ve referred to in another post on a different thread, is “Total Tig.le”. A tig.le is spherical in shape (like a holon) alluding to its being “beyond limits” (no corners or angles). This “Total Tig.le” already always contains/includes all “infinite potentialities” i.e. every and any possible manifestation, evolutionary or otherwise, belonging to the Three Times, past, present and future, … in what is called the Fourth Time. Poetic language, yes … and why not. We can conceive of greater and greater holons, one after the other transcending and including the earlier, but we can’t really conceive of a Total Holon that contains any number of holons increasing into infinity. But it is what already always IS. Non-dual suchness, yes … but I know it as the self-perfected state. For me this is beyond indigo, off the visible light spectrum … beyond beyond.

Re: Indigo Buddhism?

Thanks, ma rig pa.

“With all the talk of emptiness/shunyata, non-dual emptiness, Emptiness and Form with this Form evolving etc. it is worth bearing in mind that Dzogchen does have something quite unique within Buddhist teaching, equal emphasis and place being given to calm (nas.pa) / Emptiness, expressed in the Dzogchen teaching as “primordial purity” (ka.dag) and to movement - the movement of energy, the movement of thought, the movement of manifestation coming into being, expressed in the Dzogchen teaching as “spontaneous self-perfected presence/manifestation” (lhun.drub).”

This is really cool. Where can I read more about that? And where did you go for your retreat, which teachers? Any other living Dzogchen teachers you like?

By the way, I would bet that there's more third-tier Buddhism out there than third-tier anything else, just so you know where I'm coming from. I'm just interested in What's the leading edge? Where is it going?

Re: Indigo Buddhism?

Hi David,

I can recommend “Dzogchen: The Self-Perfected State”. An interesting read also is  “The Crystal and the Way of Light”.

The retreat was held on Isla Margarita, just off the north coast of Venezuela, at Tashigar Norte, one of the two South American gars belonging to the International Dzogchen Community which has grown up under the guidance of the Dzogchen master Chogyal Namkhai Norbu (biographical material here and here). A gar was a large nomadic encampment that would spring up on the Tibetan plateau, remaining in one place for a season or so. The person who is held to be the previous incarnation of my teacher was a famous Dzogchen master called Adzom Drugpa, who lived and taught in this kind of encampment, people coming to him from afar. Namkhai Norbu preferred to model his “centres” on the less permanent gar rather than the more permanent gilt-roofed monastery.

The only other (living) Dzogchen teachers I can recommend from personal experience are both from the Bon tradition. There is Lopon Tenzin Namdak, and one of his students who is a very experienced Dzogchen teacher in his own right, Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche.

”By the way, I would bet that there's more third-tier Buddhism out there than third-tier anything else, just so you know where I'm coming from. I'm just interested in What's the leading edge? Where is it going?”

Where it's going is where it's always been going. And who really knows? We can only work with our circumstances according to the capacities we have. And of course we work at increasing/developing our various capacities, evolving who we are as a human being. We could do this in isolation, but not so well or easily in the 21st century – so we are called, obliged really, to collaborate: individuals, groups, communities, societies. We evolve ourselves and help each other evolve and the world evolves with us.

I am interested in seeing how AC's visionary experiment unfolds. In the meantime for me the leading edge in a very real way is my own frontier. How far can I push it this time around? …. without developing blocks and tensions, that is.

Re: Indigo Buddhism?

Marigpa:  “The only other (living) Dzogchen teachers I can recommend from personal experience are both from the Bon tradition. There is Lopon Tenzin Namdak, and one of his students who is a very experienced Dzogchen teacher in his own right, Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche.”

I can second this recommendation.  I have studied extensively with both of these teachers, in Nepal and the U.S., and actually lived at Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche's center for a couple years.  They are excellent teachers and guides.

I'm sorry that I haven't been able to participate much in this discussion.  I've been following it, but I've been quite preoccupied the past couple weeks and haven't had the usual time and energy to give to the forums.  But it was a fruitful distraction:  I have just been hired as part-time faculty at John F. Kennedy University, to teach a couple “Paradigms of Consciousness” classes!  I'm very excited by that.

Best wishes,

B.

P.S.  Lol, great to see you joining this discussion!  Representin' for rigpa and all…  :-)

Re: Indigo Buddhism?

Rick said: “As I have suspected David, we are really talking about the same thing and seeing eye to eye.”
 
I've often thought the same thing!

Rick said: “Can you elaborate upon this “more perfect,” and define it as opposed to what exactly?”
 
Okay, well, things were “perfect” in the U.S. when there was slavery and malaria, but things are “more perfect” now that there isn't slavery and malaria.

Re: Indigo Buddhism?

Thanks for the recommendations, guys. I'd love to check them out some day. Especially in Venezuela!