I’m guessing you’re referring to his revised four path model? It doesn’t quite match my experience and he devotes quite a bit of time (as do other teachers I respect) on why attainments are a bit fraught. I had two experiences after several years of practice that caused large portions of previously inscrutable dharma material to click into place, and they roughly corresponded to how people were describing things in first and second path. The first one corresponded to (among other things) dramatically heightened access to meditative states, the second to a large decrease in suffering and percepts of how suffering is constructed. I go into more detail on the video interview on my blog.
Thanks, for the answer(s). Watched the video as well, always cool to hear about other peoples journeys. If you want there is a discordserver (MD) with some pretty advanced practitioners (3rd/4th path) you and/or Kaj could join (for some data points or practice or fun, feels more useful than Dharmaoverground these days).
Not sure whether different enlightenment levels would be more recommendable for random people.
E.g. stream-entry might be relatively easy and helpful, but then there is a “risk” of spending the next years trying to get 2nd/3rd/4th. It’s such a transformative experience that it’s hard to predict on an individual level what the person will do afterwards.
However, if you’ve ever seen me answer the question “What is stream entry like,” you know that my answer is always “Stream entry is like the American invasion of Iraq.” It’s taking a dictatorship that is pretty clearly bad and overthrowing it (where the “ego,” a word necessarily left undefined, serves as dictator). While in theory this would cause, over time, a better government to form, it will assuredly leave a period without any government, when the day-to-day functions of government are simply not carried out. The path is supposed to be about, as the Buddha says, “Suffering and the end of suffering,” but as far as I’ve seen, the correlation between stream entry and suffering is about 0; suffering is as likely to get better as it is to get worse. Whether it’s better to have a pre-awakening dictatorship or a post-awakening anarchy is basically a toss-up. Upali and I like to describe stream entry as “a big flaming turd of false advertisement,” as we both experienced quite extreme suffering subsequent to stream entry.
but as far as I’ve seen, the correlation between stream entry and suffering is about 0; suffering is as likely to get better as it is to get worse.
I assume the correlation of 0 is hyperbolic. From what I have heard (and my own experience) it seems to reduce suffering. Ingram often mentions lots of people confusing the A&P with Streamentry and then of course afterwards they will be suffering more in the DN. The criteria he mentioned in the post also can’t necessarily separate between A&P and Streamentry so I am wondering how often that happens in his bubble. Especially when he then says second path almost always reduces suffering. However, I could see the psychological things and suffering happen but I would want to see the data and environment in which it is happening. I will take his statement as a small update. I also know one person who had problems with DP/DR after their second path (though it was a weird one kind of getting them up in the seen there is only the seen).
> Ultimately, the only reason awakening is important is that it amplifies these characteristics, so I’d suggest – and I know you probably won’t like this, since you’re reading an article on awakening – that you ignore awakening and focus instead on the day-to-day (or maybe week-to-week) benefits of meditation. As long as you tell them about the Dark Night and don’t tell them they have Streamentry after their A&P, that seems fine.
> So What Is Stream Entry Like? citing After the ecstasy the laundry It more tells stories and vibes than anything detailed phenomenology and changes (maybe someone else could translate it into something more clear). I enjoyed the book for the stories though.
I know there is at least one study by the EPRC happening on the effects of meditation on the sense of self (valenced positively or negatively) maybe we will get some data in the next years. I would be >80% that in a typical pragmatic dharma setting Streamentry reduces suffering for >70% of people.
--- The guy is not my vibe so I looked for some positive things to think about him, he mentioned seeing the paradox constantly which is pretty cool and on his website he has some other people to contact if one is studying with him but feeling like there is something you can’t mention to him.
Carl Jung is a perfect exemplar of all of that, because when he had his extended episode of such after his break with Freud, he indeed had a period where his ego was completely toast and nonfunctional, as he tells it.
BTW when I was 16, and my family and I had landed in Germany, I was suffering from a very bad case of jet lag, and in said state of utter exhaustion dreamt of Jung’s Man Eater:
Every basic detail was the same: the underground cavern, the sense that the thing was alive and very dangerous, the platform it was on, and most certainly the primal terror. I didn’t hear my mother’s voice tho-my family was actually eating dinner at the time (I stumbled out of bed in my extreme panic to try to find them in the hotel restaurant, ended up wearing my younger sister’s jeans which of course were too small, wrapped a towel around myself, to their amusement).
An ancient phallic fertility god, as he described it. It happened in Baden Baden, 100 years after his and about 100 miles north of where he was living in Switzerland.
I’ve never really managed to locate myself on the MCTB maps. Sometimes I’ll have a brief period when it feels like some particular stage might fit my experience, but then that stops being the case.
Do you want to mention where on e.g. the MCTB (https://www.mctb.org/) maps you two would be? Just to get a perspective on your perspective.
I’m guessing you’re referring to his revised four path model? It doesn’t quite match my experience and he devotes quite a bit of time (as do other teachers I respect) on why attainments are a bit fraught. I had two experiences after several years of practice that caused large portions of previously inscrutable dharma material to click into place, and they roughly corresponded to how people were describing things in first and second path. The first one corresponded to (among other things) dramatically heightened access to meditative states, the second to a large decrease in suffering and percepts of how suffering is constructed. I go into more detail on the video interview on my blog.
Thanks, for the answer(s). Watched the video as well, always cool to hear about other peoples journeys. If you want there is a discordserver (MD) with some pretty advanced practitioners (3rd/4th path) you and/or Kaj could join (for some data points or practice or fun, feels more useful than Dharmaoverground these days).
Not sure whether different enlightenment levels would be more recommendable for random people.
E.g. stream-entry might be relatively easy and helpful, but then there is a “risk” of spending the next years trying to get 2nd/3rd/4th. It’s such a transformative experience that it’s hard to predict on an individual level what the person will do afterwards.
That sounds fun, feel free to message me with an invite. :)
Worth noting that stream entry isn’t necessarily a net positive either:
I assume the correlation of 0 is hyperbolic. From what I have heard (and my own experience) it seems to reduce suffering. Ingram often mentions lots of people confusing the A&P with Streamentry and then of course afterwards they will be suffering more in the DN. The criteria he mentioned in the post also can’t necessarily separate between A&P and Streamentry so I am wondering how often that happens in his bubble. Especially when he then says second path almost always reduces suffering.
However, I could see the psychological things and suffering happen but I would want to see the data and environment in which it is happening. I will take his statement as a small update. I also know one person who had problems with DP/DR after their second path (though it was a weird one kind of getting them up in the seen there is only the seen).
> Ultimately, the only reason awakening is important is that it amplifies these characteristics, so I’d suggest – and I know you probably won’t like this, since you’re reading an article on awakening – that you ignore awakening and focus instead on the day-to-day (or maybe week-to-week) benefits of meditation.
As long as you tell them about the Dark Night and don’t tell them they have Streamentry after their A&P, that seems fine.
> So What Is Stream Entry Like? citing After the ecstasy the laundry
It more tells stories and vibes than anything detailed phenomenology and changes (maybe someone else could translate it into something more clear). I enjoyed the book for the stories though.
I know there is at least one study by the EPRC happening on the effects of meditation on the sense of self (valenced positively or negatively) maybe we will get some data in the next years.
I would be >80% that in a typical pragmatic dharma setting Streamentry reduces suffering for >70% of people.
---
The guy is not my vibe so I looked for some positive things to think about him, he mentioned seeing the paradox constantly which is pretty cool and on his website he has some other people to contact if one is studying with him but feeling like there is something you can’t mention to him.
Carl Jung is a perfect exemplar of all of that, because when he had his extended episode of such after his break with Freud, he indeed had a period where his ego was completely toast and nonfunctional, as he tells it.
BTW when I was 16, and my family and I had landed in Germany, I was suffering from a very bad case of jet lag, and in said state of utter exhaustion dreamt of Jung’s Man Eater:
https://jungcurrents.com/carl-jungs-first-dream-the-man-eater
Every basic detail was the same: the underground cavern, the sense that the thing was alive and very dangerous, the platform it was on, and most certainly the primal terror. I didn’t hear my mother’s voice tho-my family was actually eating dinner at the time (I stumbled out of bed in my extreme panic to try to find them in the hotel restaurant, ended up wearing my younger sister’s jeans which of course were too small, wrapped a towel around myself, to their amusement).
An ancient phallic fertility god, as he described it. It happened in Baden Baden, 100 years after his and about 100 miles north of where he was living in Switzerland.
I’ve never really managed to locate myself on the MCTB maps. Sometimes I’ll have a brief period when it feels like some particular stage might fit my experience, but then that stops being the case.