Ah, right, now I think I understand what you were saying.
I think the thing here is that, like a lot of old research on the topic, Dietrich does not do a very precise job of exactly what kind of meditation he’s talking about: possibly because he doesn’t (or at least didn’t at the time of writing this) realize that meditation actually covers a wide variety of different practices.
In particular, the thing that he’s talking about sounds kind of like he’s describing something like high-level samatha jhanas: probably something like the seventh or eighth jhana (note: links within that wiki seem to be broken, people curious about the earlier jhanas may want to use the book’s pdf instead).
These are indeed mental states where a meditator may end up in, if they manage to concentrate really really intensely on just one thing, to the exclusion of anything else. And from those descriptions, it really does sound like you reach them by successively turning off brain functions until you get a really weird mental state.
However, a lot of traditions—including the author of the linked wiki/book—emphasize that getting into samatha jhana states is not enlightenment. Some of them can be really pleasant, so getting into the early ones is useful for motivating you to practice your concentration skills: but in order to move towards enlightenment, you need to do a different kind of meditation, i.e. actively observing the normal operation of your own mental processes, which you cannot do if you are shutting all of them down. (Though lower samatha jhanas still keep some of them intact, so getting into a nice pleasurable samatha jhana can be useful for helping you concentrate on studying them.) That article for the eighth jhana expressly warns meditators not to get too caught up with the samatha jhanas, saying that people who do so are “junkies”:
Just to drive this point home, an important feature of concentration practices is that they are not liberating in and of themselves. Even the highest of these states ends. The afterglow from them does not last that long, and regular reality might even seem like a bit of an assault when it is gone. However, jhana-junkies still abound, and many have no idea that this is what they have become. I have a good friend who has been lost in the formless realms for over 20 years, attaining them again and again in his practice, rationalizing that he is doing dzogchen practice (a type of insight practice) when he is just sitting in the 4th −6th jhanas, rationalizing that the last two formless realms are emptiness, and rationalizing that he is enlightened. It is a true dharma tragedy.
Unfortunately, as another good friend of mine rightly pointed out, it is very hard to reach such people after a while. They get tangled in golden chains so beautiful that they have no idea they are even in prison, nor do they tend to take kindly to suggestions that this may be so, particularly if their identity has become bound up in their false notion that they are a realized being. Chronic jhana-junkies are fairly easy to identify, even though they often imagine that they are not. I have no problem with people becoming jhana-junkies, as we are all presumably able to take responsibilities for our choices in life. However, when people don’t realize that this is what they have become and pretend that what they are doing has something to do with insight practices, that’s annoying and sad.
Basically, Ingram’s saying the same thing that you were suggesting: that there’s no particular insight to be had from these states, as they’re just tripping on weird experiences that you get from turning normal brain functions off, but that people who get too attached to them may start rationalizing all kinds of excess significance to them.
(I think that I’ve personally been to a mild version of the first samatha jhana a few times, but not anywhere higher than that.)
I think the thing here is that, like a lot of old research on the topic, Dietrich does not do a very precise job of exactly what kind of meditation he’s talking about: possibly because he doesn’t (or at least didn’t at the time of writing this) realize that meditation actually covers a wide variety of different practices.
Good point, that would explain a lot. What do you think of the second paper that I link to here that tries to create a framework for classifying the various contemplative practices? If it seems like a useful framework, where does “Looking” fall into it?
Basically, Ingram’s saying the same thing that you were suggesting: that there’s no particular insight to be had from these states, as they’re just tripping on weird experiences that you get from turning normal brain functions off, but that people who get too attached to them may start rationalizing all kinds of excess significance to them.
Interestingly, it seems that there are deep disagreements between and even within Buddhist traditions about which mental states count as “enlightenment” or “awakening”, and which ones are merely states of deep concentration. See the first paper linked to in the same post.
What do you think of the second paper that I link to here that tries to create a framework for classifying the various contemplative practices? If it seems like a useful framework, where does “Looking” fall into it?
I really like that framework. This description of the deconstructive family definitely sounds like it’s talking about Looking:
Another approach would be to directly examine your experience, for example by dissecting the feeling of anxiety into its component parts and noticing how the thoughts, feelings, and physical sensations that comprise the emotion are constantly changing. In the context of Buddhist meditation, this process of inquiry is often applied to beliefs about the self, though it can similarly be applied to the nature and dynamics of perception, to the unfolding of thoughts and emotions, or to the nature of awareness.
Also, later in the same section, the paper makes a similar claim as what I was saying in my article: that establishing basic proficiency in meta-awareness / the attentional family is a prerequisite for achieving the basic skills for overcoming cognitive fusion, after which one can start developing skill in deconstructive practices / Looking:
When your sense of self is fused with the presence of anger (i.e., the feeling “I am angry”), the arising of anger is not seen clearly, but instead forms the lens through which you view experience. Attentional family practices train the capacity to recognize the occurrence of anger and other states of mind, enabling one to notice the presence of angry thoughts, physiological changes, and shifts in affective tone. This process of sustained recognition allows for the investigation of the experience of anger, an approach taken with deconstructive meditations. With this added element, one is not merely sustaining awareness of the experience of anger, but also investigating its various components, inquiring into its relationship with one’s sense of self, and/or uncovering the implicit beliefs that inform the arising of anger and then questioning the validity of these beliefs in light of present-moment experience (see Box 4). This investigation of conscious experience is said to elicit an experience of insight, a flash of intuitive understanding that can be stabilized when linked with meta-awareness. Thus, meta-awareness sets the stage for self-inquiry and allows for the stabilization of the insight it generates while nevertheless being a distinct process.
I didn’t really discuss the constructive family in the post, but I did briefly gesture towards it when I mentioned that “I think in terms of meditative practices that work within an existing system (of pleasure and pain), versus ones that try to move you outside the system entirely”; in terms of the paper, meditative practices that worked “inside the system” would probably be classified mostly as constructive ones.
Interestingly, it seems that there are deep disagreements between and even within Buddhist traditions about which mental states count as “enlightenment” or “awakening”, and which ones are merely states of deep concentration.
I didn’t read the first paper yet, but that’s definitely been my suspicion as well. There are probably a number of different states that different traditions call with that label.
Ah, right, now I think I understand what you were saying.
I think the thing here is that, like a lot of old research on the topic, Dietrich does not do a very precise job of exactly what kind of meditation he’s talking about: possibly because he doesn’t (or at least didn’t at the time of writing this) realize that meditation actually covers a wide variety of different practices.
In particular, the thing that he’s talking about sounds kind of like he’s describing something like high-level samatha jhanas: probably something like the seventh or eighth jhana (note: links within that wiki seem to be broken, people curious about the earlier jhanas may want to use the book’s pdf instead).
These are indeed mental states where a meditator may end up in, if they manage to concentrate really really intensely on just one thing, to the exclusion of anything else. And from those descriptions, it really does sound like you reach them by successively turning off brain functions until you get a really weird mental state.
However, a lot of traditions—including the author of the linked wiki/book—emphasize that getting into samatha jhana states is not enlightenment. Some of them can be really pleasant, so getting into the early ones is useful for motivating you to practice your concentration skills: but in order to move towards enlightenment, you need to do a different kind of meditation, i.e. actively observing the normal operation of your own mental processes, which you cannot do if you are shutting all of them down. (Though lower samatha jhanas still keep some of them intact, so getting into a nice pleasurable samatha jhana can be useful for helping you concentrate on studying them.) That article for the eighth jhana expressly warns meditators not to get too caught up with the samatha jhanas, saying that people who do so are “junkies”:
Basically, Ingram’s saying the same thing that you were suggesting: that there’s no particular insight to be had from these states, as they’re just tripping on weird experiences that you get from turning normal brain functions off, but that people who get too attached to them may start rationalizing all kinds of excess significance to them.
(I think that I’ve personally been to a mild version of the first samatha jhana a few times, but not anywhere higher than that.)
Good point, that would explain a lot. What do you think of the second paper that I link to here that tries to create a framework for classifying the various contemplative practices? If it seems like a useful framework, where does “Looking” fall into it?
Interestingly, it seems that there are deep disagreements between and even within Buddhist traditions about which mental states count as “enlightenment” or “awakening”, and which ones are merely states of deep concentration. See the first paper linked to in the same post.
Those papers are a great find!
I really like that framework. This description of the deconstructive family definitely sounds like it’s talking about Looking:
Another approach would be to directly examine your experience, for example by dissecting the feeling of anxiety into its component parts and noticing how the thoughts, feelings, and physical sensations that comprise the emotion are constantly changing. In the context of Buddhist meditation, this process of inquiry is often applied to beliefs about the self, though it can similarly be applied to the nature and dynamics of perception, to the unfolding of thoughts and emotions, or to the nature of awareness.
Also, later in the same section, the paper makes a similar claim as what I was saying in my article: that establishing basic proficiency in meta-awareness / the attentional family is a prerequisite for achieving the basic skills for overcoming cognitive fusion, after which one can start developing skill in deconstructive practices / Looking:
When your sense of self is fused with the presence of anger (i.e., the feeling “I am angry”), the arising of anger is not seen clearly, but instead forms the lens through which you view experience. Attentional family practices train the capacity to recognize the occurrence of anger and other states of mind, enabling one to notice the presence of angry thoughts, physiological changes, and shifts in affective tone. This process of sustained recognition allows for the investigation of the experience of anger, an approach taken with deconstructive meditations. With this added element, one is not merely sustaining awareness of the experience of anger, but also investigating its various components, inquiring into its relationship with one’s sense of self, and/or uncovering the implicit beliefs that inform the arising of anger and then questioning the validity of these beliefs in light of present-moment experience (see Box 4). This investigation of conscious experience is said to elicit an experience of insight, a flash of intuitive understanding that can be stabilized when linked with meta-awareness. Thus, meta-awareness sets the stage for self-inquiry and allows for the stabilization of the insight it generates while nevertheless being a distinct process.
I didn’t really discuss the constructive family in the post, but I did briefly gesture towards it when I mentioned that “I think in terms of meditative practices that work within an existing system (of pleasure and pain), versus ones that try to move you outside the system entirely”; in terms of the paper, meditative practices that worked “inside the system” would probably be classified mostly as constructive ones.
I didn’t read the first paper yet, but that’s definitely been my suspicion as well. There are probably a number of different states that different traditions call with that label.