Levels of Enlightenment

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[@SaxonShore]

One day, a famous woman lecturer on Buddhist metaphysics came to see Achaan Chah. This woman gave periodic teachings in Bangkok on the abhidharma and complex Buddhist psychology. In talking to Achaan Chah, she detailed how important it was for people to understand Buddhist psychology and how much her students benefited from their study with her. She asked him whether he agreed with the importance of such understanding. "Yes, very important", he agreed. Delighted, she further questioned whether he had his own students learn abhidharma. "Oh, yes, of course." And where, she asked, did he recommend they start, which books and studies were best? "Only here," he said, pointing to his heart, "only here."

[@fancee_shmancee]

He had a book in his heart??

[@kevindole1284]

Duh. ​@@fancee_shmancee

[@joshberg7944]

Omg. Stopping at 11:50. Feeling ecstatic. Ty Brad Warner 🙏🙏

[@pajamawilliams9847]

Since i don't have access to a teacher I've found the Pali canon a useful adjunct to my practice. In my experience i have yet to find any real disagreement between Zen and Theravada, at least in terms of actual experience. I agree that its important you don't get stuck missing the moon for the reflection. Also, i think theres a ton of Zen practicers who have been practicing decades who are just as messed up and miserable as they were when they started because they got confused about what's being discussed, and since nobody in Zen wants to approach the subject few people actually get released from suffering. It's a sad state, but we need maps and definitions even if they're ultimately thrown away in the end. You don't have to take my word for it. Go read "clear pointers" by ajahn chah to see that Zen and Theravada are the same. "No picking and choosing". In the words of Ajahn Chah: "Anything that is troubling you, that is your teacher".

[@dominicvallee]

Another good one, Brad! Thanks! For my part, the moment I stopped caring so much about terms like “enlightenment” or “kenshō” is basically when I started to truly notice some kind of evolution in my psyche and spirituality. In fact I feel like these words don’t belong to me, so I just ignore any concepts of illumination. That said, I can’t help but wonder if these experiences will come naturally to anyone genuinely dedicated to living with integrity and clarity, not in ideological ways but kind of in response to “what’s true, here and now”. Ugh… I don’t know. Anyway thanks again! ✨

[@ldydyk]

Thank you, Brad.

[@Chingfordassociates]

"But what's been flying high must always touch the ground Just walk upstairs and ask, you'll be likely directed down" Gene Clark, The True One 1974. I don't know why but this video made me think of this lyric.

[@OliverWunderlich]

Couldn't agree more. Though your point of view is very soto, less rinzai. And even in soto there are gatekeepers between satori and kensho.

[@awakenotwoke7949]

I know I am not in an abiding wakened state because I'm one with my vegetable peeler, but I hate most people and my microwave.

[@pauldelasaux5756]

💓

[@Michael_Charles_Gross]

My understanding is from a Vipassana point of view which claims Jhanas in and of themselves don’t led to enlightenment. They are just the result of “right concentration” practice and it’s possible to get into the first 4 Jhanas and another 4 “formless” Jhanas where all bodily sensations are no longer perceptible. Once attained, many find these Jhanas to be an ideal state from which to begin insight practice.

[@PhilipRyanDeal]

You are where you are and you can't be anywhere else.

[@fhoniemcphonsen8987]

Good one. Thanks.

[@G.Mondragon]

It’s like reading a cookbook cover to cover without creating a single dish. Then asking other chefs to describe in detail what the dishes taste like. Just cook. Study the sutras, read the stories, read the poems. Study Dōgen. Then, Just sit.

[@willieluncheonette5843]

There are 3 stages of enlightenment. "The first is when the first glimpse happens. I call it mini-satori. When, for the first time, for a single moment mind is not functioning, there is a gap - no thought between you and existence. You and existence, you and existence… for a moment… and the meeting, and the merging, and the communion, and the orgasm… but for a moment. And from that moment the seed will be in your heart and growing. The second I call satori: that is when you have become capable of retaining this gap as long as you want. For hours together, for days together you can remain in this interval, in this utter aloneness, in God, with God, as God. But a little effort is still needed on your part. If you drop the effort the satori disappears. The first satori, the mini-satori, happened almost as an accident - you were not even expecting it. How can you expect? You had not known it before, you had never tasted it. How can you expect it? It came just out of the blue. Yes, you were doing many things - praying, meditating, dancing, singing - but they were all like groping in the dark. You were groping. It will not happen if you are not groping at all. It happens only to ‘gropers’, real gropers - they go on groping, they never feel tired and exhausted, and they never feel hopeless. Millions of times they are defeated in their effort, and nothing happens, but they go on and on. Their passion for God is so tremendous. They can accept all kinds of defeats and frustrations, but their search continues. Unwavering, they go on groping. The darkness is great, it seems to be almost endless, but their hope is greater than the darkness. That is the meaning of faith; they grope through faith. Faith means hoping for that which seems almost impossible. Faith means hoping against all hope. Faith means trying to see that which you have not seen, and you cannot even be certain whether it exists or not. A great passion is needed to have that much faith. So to a groper who lives in faith and goes on and on, nothing ever prevents him. No failure ever settles in him; his journey continues. He is the pilgrim. Then one day it comes just out of the blue. You were not expecting. Unawares, it comes close to you and surrounds you. For a moment you cannot even believe… How can you believe? - for millions of lives a person has been groping, and it has not happened. The first time it looks almost like imagination, dream. But it is there, and it is so real that all that you have known before as real pales before it, becomes very faint. It is so real that it carries its certainty intrinsically. It is self-evident. You cannot suspect it. That is the criterion of whether the mini-satori has happened or not: you cannot doubt it. You can try, but you cannot doubt it. It is so certain that no doubt arises in that moment. It is simply there. It is like the sun has risen… how can you doubt? Then the second becomes a more conscious groping. Now you know it is, now you know it has happened. Now you know it has even happened to you! Now there is a great certainty. Now faith is not needed, now experience is enough. Now belief is not needed. Now its certainty permeates your whole being, you are full of it. Now you grope more consciously, you make efforts in the right direction. Now you know how it happened, when it happened, in what space it became possible. You were dancing? - then what was happening when it happened? In what way did the contact become possible? By and by, it happens again and again, and you can make out, figure out, reckon out how it happens, in what mood. In what mood do you fall in tune with it and it happens? Now things become more clear, now it is not just waiting in the darkness. You can start moving, you can have a direction. Still you falter, still sometimes you fall, still sometimes it disappears for months. But never again can doubt arise in you. The doubt has been killed by the first satori. Then, more and more, it will come. And sooner or later you will become capable of bringing it on order. Whenever you want you can create that milieu in you which brings it. You can relax, if it comes in relaxation; you can dance, if it comes in dance. You can go under the sky if it comes there. You can watch a rose flower if it happens there. You can go and float in a river if it happens there. That’s how all the methods have been discovered. They have been discovered by people when they found out that in a certain situation - make certain arrangements - it happens. Those became methods. By and by you become very very certain that if you desire it, any moment you will be able, because you can move your focus towards it. You can move your whole consciousness, you can direct your being. Now you become able to see that it is always there; just your contact is needed. It is almost like your radio or like your TV: it is always there, sounds are always passing; you just have to tune the radio to a certain station - and the song, and the news. This is the second stage. But still, effort is needed to tune. You are not continuously tuned on your own, you have to work it out. Some days it is easy, some days it is hard. If you are in a negative mood it is hard, if you are angry, it is hard. If you are loving it is easier. In the early morning it is easier, in the evening it is more difficult. Alone on a mountain it is easier, in the market-place it is more difficult. So you start coming closer and closer, but still effort is needed. Then the third thing happens. When you become so capable of finding it that any moment, whenever you want it - not a single moment is lost - you immediately can pinpoint it, then the third thing happens. It becomes a natural quality. That I call samadhi. Satori one, satori two, satori three… The first satori must have happened somewhere in the East - in Tibet or in India. Jesus was with Buddhist Masters. The first satori must have happened somewhere here, because to the Jews samadhi had never been a concern. Jesus brings something very foreign to the Jewish world: he introduces Buddha into the Jewish world. It must have happened somewhere in Nalanda, where he stayed for many years. But he was travelling - he was in Egypt, he was in India, in Tibet. So nobody can be certain of where it happened. But more possibility is India: it remains, for centuries, the country where satori has been more available than anywhere else - for a certain reason - because so many people have been meditating here. Their meditation has created very potential spots, very available spots. It must have happened somewhere here, but no record is there, so I’m not saying anything historical. But about the second: it is certain it happened in the River Jordan with John the Baptist when he initiated Jesus into his path - the path of the Essenes. He was a great Master, John the Baptist, a very revolutionary prophet. The second satori must have happened there. It is depicted as a white dove descending on Jesus. The white dove has always been the symbol of peace, silence. That is the symbol for satori - the unknown descending. The second satori must have happened there. And John the Baptist said “My work is finished. The man has come who will take it over from me. Now I can renounce and go into the mountains. I was waiting for this man.” And the third happened just on the cross - the last effort of the ego - very tiny, but still… Jesus must have desired how things should be in some way. Deep down, in some unconscious nook or comer of his being, he must have been hoping that God would save him. And God never moves according to you. Man proposes and God disposes - that’s how he teaches you to disappear, that’s how he teaches you not to will on your own, not to have a private will. And the last lesson happened on the cross, at the last moment. Jesus shouted, almost in agony “Why have you forsaken me? Why have you deserted me? What wrong have I done?” But he was a man of great insight - the man of second satori. Immediately he must have become aware that this was wrong: “That means I still have a desire of my own, a will of my own. That means I still am not totally in God. My surrender is still only ninety-nine per cent.” And a surrender that is ninety-nine per cent is a no-surrender, because surrender is one hundred per cent. A circle is a circle only when it is complete. You can’t call a half-circle a half-circle, because ‘circle’ means complete. There are no half-circles. There is no approximate truth. The approximate truth is still a lie; either it is true or it is not true. There is nothing like approximate truth, and there is nothing like approximate surrender. In that moment he realised. He relaxed, he surrendered. He said “Let Thy kingdom come. Who am I to interfere? Let thy will be done”… and the third satori, samadhi. That moment, Jesus disappeared. And I call that moment his resurrection. That is the moment Buddha says: gate, gate, paragate, parasamgate, bodhi svaha: Gone, gone, gone beyond, gone altogether beyond. What ecstasy! Alleluia! That is the moment of absolute benediction. Jesus became God. The Son became Father in that moment; all distinction disappeared. The last barrier dissolved, Jesus had come home."

[@carmelaloperena8972]

I have enjoyed reading your essay. Is it yours or did you just copy and paste in comments?. Are you a Contemplative or just a reader?. Whoever wrote the essay posted sounds as it was more based in his/her own views and possible personal meditative experience than a reality happening in the here and the now. Saying this for the Jesus hypothesis and God about which seem to be more related to the education and cultural mental formations of the meditator than any real historical events. Anyway, thank you all the same for sharing.

[@willieluncheonette5843]

@@carmelaloperena8972 It is from a talk by Osho.

[@carmelaloperena8972]

@@willieluncheonette5843 ; Thanks. I've heard that name before but never read anything from him till your posting.

[@willieluncheonette5843]

@@carmelaloperena8972 I love him. He has talked on MANY spiritual subjects, all compiled in hundreds of books.

[@carmelaloperena8972]

@@willieluncheonette5843 ; If Osho writings help you, good for you. I have recently discover a Spanish Soto Zen Practitioner called Miguel Ibañez who hasn't written any book yet; but his conferences at the Universities Spiritual Forum and interviews are truly fascinating. He's a real skillful gem for it explains some difficult zen concepts with such a simplicity and clarity that one gets fascinated. He makes one to touch in one straight away whatever he explains. I don't know many Zen Teachers with such a remarkable skill. So Osho can wait for now.

[@blackbird5634]

"Spiritual growth through materialism is like taping sandwiches to your body when you're hungry.'' -George Carlin. 🙃

[@GenXMystic]

Your perspective is refreshing. You hit on something that I haven't ever actually verbalized, but I do find some "spiritual" people to be pretentious.

[@ein.toter.hippie]

You always look into a mirror.

[@dre.v.8383]

I think Ziggy is enlightened... Well, he goes behind squirrels, so I don't know... 😁🐾🙊🐿️

[@goatsplitter]

In my opinion, for what it's worth (jack squat), if you're focusing on the levels of enlightenment, you missed the boat.

[@svetokolibarski9160]

Аctaully, I agree that chasing and comparing of states and maps can be a problem even for very mature practitioners. I also think that I can understand why Zen got away with all that. I am grateful that Zen instilled in me some immunity against chasing after any kind of states. I am not specifically trained in the jhanas so I don't have a thorough understanding of them but here are a few thoughts because I know well some of the jhanic factors. They arise naturally out of concentration. If you develop only concentration you learn to hit the jahanas in more and more pure form. My teacher pushed me to do only concentration coupled with insight (more zazen type of practice) so I did not fully develop the skill to explore the jhanas in their full form. However, the thing with the jahnic factors and the stages of the practice is that they unfold naturally and in a very predictable sequence. When you systematically re-enter and study those altered states you begin to recognize the jhanic factors with increasing clarity and certainty. I can assure you that there is no wondering what is going on and you do not need confirmation of any kind though I find it fun to see technical descriptions of those states. But I know the jhanic factors such as equanimity and bliss the way I know there is a cup of coffee in front of me right now. For example, when the rapture of the first jhanas arise, it is pretty clear you are having a particular type of ecstasy. In the Pali texts the term is called piti. You learn to recognize it because this ecstatic state has a very bodily component to it. When you get to the more refined states of the next jhanic factors, you begin to see more subtle stuff so you experience sukha. This is particular type of bliss. How do you know which is which? Very easy. When you re-enter and deconstruct to see the impermanence and dissatisfaction of those states again and again and again. The first jhanic factors arise as part of pleasant bodily sensations, whereas later on the mind is more gathered and the body fades because the meditators start to experience and deconstruct primarily ever more subtle mental phenomena (make no mistake, I am not speaking of thoughts, they are long gone even before the piti). Sukha feels like superior form of mental contentment compared to the Dionysian bodily high of piti. When the phenomenon become really subtle, there are very few things left so you know that upekkha or equanimity begins to emerge. Many people describe the beginning as a particular form of softness to experience (coming for dramatic reduction of dukkha) You do not need definitions or confirmations, you just know what it is like. How do you know, well because all this unfolds in a very predictable and replicable fashion time and time again. It does not matter how you will call it. I just find that some of the old school dudes did a tremendous job to define and map out the process with great precision. In conclusion, I will say that this same sequence of insight can unfold in zen practice as well but in a bit more random way. In my case also with much, much less clarity and recognition what is going on and in a much midler way because strong concentration is like a telescope that zoom in on the phenomomena. Also, this is one of the great dangers that that I see in the process The lack of sufficient concentration to unlock even milder forms of that. I imagine that this may not be such an issue in a monastic environment if they have established many hours of sitting for extended periods of time such as in Ango. But even during Angos I saw many people who did lack sufficient concentration. How do I know? Well, it is not that difficult to recognize it in hindsight. If one cannot sit with ease for extended periods of time after weeks of training. When you hit the jhanic factors, the hindrances begin to drop and you basically want to just sit. The harder and the clearer they arise, the more one can sit like a mountain for the entire day without issues. If people practice weeks and months and still get in the dojo with difficulty for me it is quite clear that lack of the right concentration is one of the reasons. I apologize for trolling your videos with such long comments. I just try to address to the best of my ability what I see as a very serious problem in the Zen practice I went through.

[@BradGad]

Hi Brad. I'm getting a lot out of your videos. Question: will you please explain the relationship between zazen and shikantaza? Why do we sometimes use one term and sometimes the other? Is shikantaza something specific we do within zazen, or are they essentially synonyms? Thanks

[@joshu4780]

Zazen/Sitting Zen. • Shikantaza/Just Sitting

[@pajamawilliams9847]

Zazen is any seated meditation. Shikantaza is a type of Zazen where you don't try to control your thoughts. Samatha is a type of meditation in which you focus on your breath and bodily sensations which could also be called Zazen, but not Shikantaza, since you're intentionally and purposefully directing attention.

[@michigandersea3485]

Shikantaza also contrasts with shikan, the traditional Tendai Buddhist meditation practice combining shamatha (Pali samatha) and vipashyana (Pali vipassana). The two are not etymologically related, though

[@joeg3950]

I have no patience for high-maintenance practitioners. You're a better person than I. If a person like this came to me with all of this gobbledygook, I would just say, "Zazen." Viva Ziggy!

[@deean.art0]

​@user-cn3du8zi3zcult of Ziggy? Sure, I'll join

[@williambigger1545]

I think maps are ultimately unreal, everyone is different. However, referencing Daniel Ingram's book and identifying that I had experienced AMP meant that I was due for a dark night helped me put my emotions into context

[@svetokolibarski9160]

Maps are very real. The practice unfolds in sequences. What you wrote just confirms it. If it is systematic, with more concentration and with a competent teacher, one can gradually learn to unfold and recognize with precision more of the sequences, not just what you call AMP.

[@mstefanovic9475]

Your principal mistake consists in thinking that you always have consciousness, and in general, either that consciousness is always present or that it is never present. In reality consciousness is a property which is continually changing. Now it is present, now it is not present. And there are different degrees and different levels of consciousness. Both conscious- ness and the different degrees of consciousness must be understood in oneself by sensation, by taste. No definitions can help you in this case and no definitions are possible so long as you do not understand what you have to define. ~ Mr. George Gurdjieff

[@ChuckBe]

Yes, a good one, thank you! (You need to have a talk with those birds - they’re very noisy and distracting!)

[@t.c.bramblett617]

Just do the zazen And make sure the path gets swept

[@kemosabe168]

Well put /\ some reminders from Phish. Hope it’s ok

[@gundulfguy2179]

Great video Brad. I empathize very much this line of skepticism regarding states such as the Jhanas, and of the efficacy of meditation in achieving any sort of complex replicable state to be honest. However, we are all humans, and must have some things in common. It seems to me that phenomenology is the best we are going to get (for a long time) when it comes to explaining, cataloguing, experiencing (duh) meditative states. Recently, I have encountered a series of guided meditations (kzbin.info/www/bejne/j4q2nH6drK1neMk&pp=iAQB), with the focus of exploring very specific aspects of attention, sensation, and emotion, and playing around with them in interesting ways. I sort of went down a little rabbit hole here, but long story short, I think there is something useful and applicable (even to Zen practitioners) to detailed phenomenological explanations for some of our meditative practices. When it comes to the Jhanas (which to me are a completely new concept), what I've read gives me the impression, that they are not steps towards enlightenment, but a separate line of deep states of concentration, which can assist in ones mental and spiritual development. Sorry for the perhaps incoherent and woo sounding rant, but I just wanted to share my thoughts.

[@gundulfguy2179]

@user-cn3du8zi3z I just might, I'll comment back in a few years lol

[@John-uw7wd]

Get Brad a compass

[@danielremete4214]

Describing dhjanas for me is something like a finger pointing to the moon... so if you have a fixation on the finger you miss the moon.

[@Valosken]

I never could get much out of those excruciating descriptions. They're not even like anything I've ever experienced on the cushion anyway.

[@DavidDistracto]

"I find your ideas gross" has always struck me as a pretty weird argument to make. There are lots of things in life that are gross, that doesn't make them untrue.

[@zfid]

I find one hundred and forty four, gross

[@guido3771]

What Dogen said when he made zazen the equivalent of enlightenment was that you dont even need that experience from which you have "to come back". But he himself insisted having had one, the shinjin datsuraku, and even had it confirmed by a teacher. He wasnt clear there, he didnt practice what he preached. In other instances he relied on the Palicanon just as it pleased him. Enlightenment there has 3 characteristics, and the insight in the 4 noble truths is just one. The other two are knowing your past and future lives and knowing those of all others. As there is no one in the world who can proof this, there is not one enlightened being according to those criteria. And because Dogen couldnt remember those lives either, he rather concentrated on other selective parts of tbe tradition. It didnt help.him out of that confusion.

[@michigandersea3485]

A minor beef, but Dogen did not have access to the Pali Canon, but the Agamas, the Mahayana equivalent, which often parallel (and sometimes historically precede) the Pali Canon

[@guido3771]

@@michigandersea3485 What do you want to imply? All I said is in the agamas and Dogen could have known it.

[@michigandersea3485]

@@guido3771 I'm not implying you're wrong, just that Dogen had the Agamas, not the Pali Canon. Sorry if it came across that way!

[@hammersaw3135]

Those who are in competitions for highest levels enlightenment will never reach either enlightenment or nirvana 😅

[@danielpont3907]

If one really drops his own biases, obsessions, misconceptions even partially, even temporarily why one would bother to classify his state ? The result would i be a very gross approximation of what one experiences... Isn't this this stage-ification assessment a way to reassure oneself ?

[@benrusher581]

I've been in a Buddhist group where all the Jhana stuff seemed to be a big deal and it just stressed me out.

[@michigandersea3485]

Same here. Some Theravada/early Buddhist groups get really into the importance of jhana. But there are plenty of references in the Pali Canon to people who became stream-enterers simply upon hearing the dharma, so it's quite clear that jhana are not necessary at least for stream entry.

[@svetokolibarski9160]

@@michigandersea3485 Pure jhanas are not necessary for stream-entry. Some Thera linages just go that way. Some of those references you mention, however, are edited by the administrative committees writing on behalf of the Buddha much later. They were bureaucrats that did not practice and wanted to justify that meditation is not necessary and intellectual understanding is sufficient. So they installed that crap in the texts. There's some research about that.

[@samthesham4684]

I think I appreciate the Zen Master who would turn to face a wall whenever he saw a student coming. All this Zen technobabble is so off putting to me now. Seems more a relic of the times than having any pragmatic value these days.

[@rolandmaio930]

Do I understand correctly that you are saying that the four jhanas described in your book correspond to the four stages of awakening in Theravada (i.e., stream enterer, once returner, non-returner, and arahat)? And that their respective levels correspond, as in: first jhana = stream enterer, second jhana = once returner, and so on?

[@JimTempleman]

Good question! - But I don't think they correspond, I don't think the jhanas need to be addressed in order. And the jhanas don't need to be addresses at all in Chan/Zen. The state of Chan can be entered directly. (Curious, I've never seen mention of 'the state of Zen,' as is applied to the term 'Chan.')

[@JimTempleman]

Brad clarifies what he was saying in the follow-on video: "Brad clarifies what he was saying," pointing out that they are not the same, nor do they correspond.

[@rolandmaio930]

@@JimTempleman Thanks for pointing that out! I was not going to watch the next video (and I didn't finish) so I would have missed the clarification otherwise.

[@matth9558]

@@JimTempleman What video is that? I can't find a video by that title. Curious to hear what Brad said! Edit: Ah, I think you mean the Perfect Enlightenment video.

[@JimTempleman]

@@matth9558 No. He said it early in the "Is Zen Just Taoism in Disguise?" video. The first Zen video after this one.

[@belteshazzarbenyakovleib4009]

The good ole my enlightenment is higher than your enlightenment game ? Hehe 😛

[@skrrskrr99]

More acoustic. More zen.

[@anassbutt1550]

I like to ruin my karma just for the sake of doing so: no gain whatsoever.

[@xxxYYZxxx]

The highest level of realization is likewise the absolute nature of all reality, namely the realization of "eternal stasis", aka "pure freedom", aka "boundlessness". Discrete quantum systems, aka "the universe", have ZERO entropy, this being what is realized in the highest level of awareness. The appearance of entropy (randomness, relativity) is a function of "decoupling" (consciousness, measurement) from an otherwise discretely entangled quantum system. I also know what reincarnation is, in plain scientific terms.