Enlightenment is supposed to end suffering, but does it really?

 

Enlightenment is supposed to end suffering, but does it really?

Q: Have anyone experienced a change (for better or worse) in the experience of psychological trauma following attaining a path (SE through to arahant)?
We all know enlightenment is supposed to end suffering, but does it really?
I know Daniel Ingram and Tina Rasmussen mentioned still having ego material, even after enlightenment, which I find disheartening. Maybe I am just overthinking it, but I would love to hear anyones direct experience with this, if you would be willing to share it.

Baba: Hi. It's a really good question that can't be answered in just one or two sentences. I'll explain this in nutshell and link a video that goes into this in more detail.

There are two types of subtle bodies: one made of one kind of channels (commonly known as nadis and chakras) and other made of different type of channels (commonly known as meridians). The meridian system is very closely associated with the physical body to the extent that traditional chinese medicine uses physical acupuncture needless on nonphysical meridian points to heal physical organs. The nadi system on the other hand is farther away from the physical body, though still connected with the body through the meridian system. If we look at these three bodies, the continuum is set like this: physical body, meridian system and nadi system. From grossest to subtlest.

Enlightenment through wisdom insight, as taught in buddhism, takes place in the nadi system and while all the bodies are connected and one event might have effect on all bodies, as a rule, it can be said that even if wisdom insight makes great changes in the nadi system of mind, the meridian system of mind and whatever is stored there can still remain mostly untouched. It's the meridian system that stores traumas (mostly).

If we leave the whole vehicle (skt. yana) discussion out of this and think of buddhists at large through the same lens, this explains (at least in some way) why some teachers who were considered to have been highly realized, acted badly or abusively because of their trauma. If you're solely focused on wisdom insight, most of trauma goes unnoticed and unadressed.

My present understanding of shamatha/calm abiding and jhana/meditative absorption is that they're buddhisms answers to adress the meridian system, though to this day I have not seen a presentation that would discuss them as ways to heal trauma, instead of being presented as concentration practices. I've recently been listening to talks by jhana-teachers and was just about to watch Tina Rasmussen's interview if they present this aspect in her tradition. View and instructions are everything in this art and largely define the results. I know lots of people who practiced shamatha solely from concentration/samadhi perspective that left their traumas pretty much entirely unadressed.

More in this video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2iuNj_zU8A8

Hopefully you find this helpful.

The Natural State Vs. Concentration Practices - Making Sense of It All

 

The Natural State Vs. Concentration Practices

-Making Sense of It All

Ben: One thing I've always had trouble wrapping my mind around in terms of Pemako's practice teachings is the reduced emphasis on concentration meditation. Techniques of gently focusing and resting the attention on the breath or a mantra or the space between eyebrows. These techniques were essential in the first five years of my practice. Awakening experiences, stabilizations, karmic purifications, all of these benefits arose from my concentration meditation practice.

For me, my meditation practice afforded me a stability, peacefulness, and a focus that made my subsequent tantric practice possible.

Then recently I had been listening to a Lion Faced Guru Podcast episode and something Kim Rinpoche said struck me. I have been contemplating it with a kind of marvel since then. To paraphrase him, he said: The tantric teachings of the Pemako lineage substitute the stability from shamatha with the stability of awakening and the natural state.

From a yoga advaita perspective, any stability mistakenly attributed to the ego self is really the misperceived stability of the Self. From the Pemako teaching standpoint, any stability found through concentration practices is not separate from the stability inherent to the natural state. Awakening to and stabilization of the natural state can therefore replace many years of meditation practice.

It was nice to have that discrepancy resolved in such an emphatic way.

Kim: Hi Dr. Ben. How have you been? 　

We do do mantra repetition in gentle manner (don't we?) and it is very important. Though this has changed lately, I churned mantras day and night for years and years, and had "stabilizations, karmic purifications, all of these benefits". Especially guru mantras have a strong pacifying effect but this pacification does not lead to momentarily silenced mind but to gradual recognition of the natural state.

I've talked about the problems of shamatha meditation so much that I think people here are sick of hearing it, ha, but I can't relate to when you say, "stability, peacefulness, and focus". Sure, I developed a lazer like focus but at the same time, even when the mind was quiet, I felt like I was on a ego trip. I didn't feel good or natural at all. I had done lots of drinking in my previous years and shamatha felt similar to that in the sense of bypassing issues and not having real sobriety! That didn't begin to change until I was able to cut through all layers of the mind with tantric practices. During my purification practice I went back to trying shamatha every now and then but it felt as weird as it did in the beginning. The ultimate meaning of shamatha/shi-ne is the natural state. Because it is possible to skip gentle concentration practices that not only are unable to reveal the natural state (because it doesn't cut through the formless mind, the substrate) and are also so time consuming, why not go directly to the bedrock, the ground (bhumi) beyond instability.

>To paraphrase him, he said: The tantric teachings of the Pemako lineage substitute the stability from shamatha with the stability of awakening and the natural state.

- My question is: Why would you spend so much time on gentle concentration practices when it doesn't lead to the recognition of the basic state? Because Shakyamuni is said to have practiced meditative absorptions that he learned from his hindu teacher after he is said to have attained full enlightenment, is probably the reason why there is still lots of confusion about this whole one-pointed concentration/samadhi/jhana/dhyana thing. This in turn makes buddhists unable to see the mistake that golden chains are still chains, whether they are made of negative destructive emotions or subtle states of meditation. I find it extremely weird how most in this religion that is considered a wisdom tradition, make such a drastic mistake. I recall Tenzin Palmo contemplating this aloud in an interview, saying that even Shakyamuni Buddha couldn't help people get awakened. One thing is the ancient influence of hindu meditations and another is the lack of practices that directly generate awakening. There are not many of those but there are some, like the 2PF. Then on the other hand when people think of buddhist practitioners they think of smiling peaceful monks with shaved heads who sit in silent meditation. There has been systematic propaganda of monasticism going on for thousands of years, and now everyone is paying a high price for it because it has such a strong impact on the whole world, wherever buddhism is taught. Buddhism has had 2.5 thousand years to make a difference ad it hasn't even reached step one that you could say that the people of the world can trust the buddhist teaching, that it will help them to remove their self-based suffering, here's how it all works, here's how it is done. Incredibly painful.

Tenzin Palmo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DKoIK6pQMzY

Back to concentration practices.

I learned everything from the dynamicity of concentration from a Chinese martial art called yiquan, or yi chuan, lit. intention boxing. See this video. I had done gentle concentration for years in meditation and then, through the three types of intention taught in yiquan, realised that intention can be kept at low volume, which is what is done in shamatha meditation for extended periods of time, but it can also be taken to higher volumes. In yiquan, there is shi li, which means to momentarily increase the intensity of focus, and there is fa li, which is sudden explosive intention or maximum intention in the form of explosion. Now, all of these are different expressions of concentration or intention but the outcome is very different. If we look at this from the perspective of yogic practice, the former leads to mental quiet and ability to focus on one thing, while the latter has the power to shatter the whole construction of the mind, and through doing so reveals that part of the mind that isn't affected or spoiled by self-based beliefs or notions. Yasutani Roshi, Japanese zen master, in his talk about just sitting or shikan taza said that one needs to sit in such an intense way that if someone touches you, sparks will fly. I think he was describing shi li sitting which if done for longer periods is exhausting because you use your vital energy to keep up that heightened intensity. This also misses the point of recognition of the basic state. Explosive type of concentration or shamatha has the power to cut through the whole self-construction to make the original nature appear. This original nature is nothing else than oneself as a buddha, or mahasiddha grounds, bhumis.

Buddhist tradition started with the first awakening experience that Shakyamuni had, that he didn't get from subtle states of meditation. These meditative states neither removed his existential dissatisfaction.

So what we do in Pemako is to put the horse in front of the cart, rather than behind it, and drive like a horse cart should be driven. What we have here is the absence of false or misleading ideas that take practitioners to subtle but strange places that they believe is the true teaching.

As far as I am concerned, the only practice in yoga is to recognise one's basic nature that is fresh, clear, sober, settled and devoid of self-based marks or habits. To me there is no other buddhist dharma practice except to recognise it and to unify our psyche with it, meaning to see the emptiness of all mind phenomena. What is a sign of proper emptiness practice? Awakenings! Bhumi openings! Bhumi perfections!

There is no other solution to suffering and confusion of the unnatural state, than the natural state, and that has nothing to do with being focused or distracted, being in meditation or not.

Emptiness of Self and Phenomena in the Forms of Space and Time

Emptiness of Self and Phenomena in the Forms of Space and Time

I was listening to an interview of Leigh Brasington, an American practitioner and teacher of buddhist meditation who has background in theravada buddhism as well as dzogchen.

In the interview (https://youtu.be/o9xP28pzQAA?t=4808) he briefly discusses concepts of space and time as forms of self-delusion. I have discussed about this on many occasions but just as a reminder, felt like writing a short note.

Emptiness of Space:

From 3-D to Zero-D

Self or me, in all of its forms and expressions, is located both in time and space. Our sense of me-ness is located in three-dimensional, 3-D, space. It is easy to see how our physical body is a three-dimensional object existing in three-dimensional physical space. In the same manner, as all of our self-based confusion is in our mind, mind objects of various kinds also come and go in the same way, appearing and disappearing in three-dimensional mind space. These two bodies, physical and energetic or mind, are the two most obvious bodies we have but then there is a third body which for sentient beings is mostly hidden and unknown. This unfamiliarity (marigpa) is the root cause of our confusion and suffering. That is the body of knowing awareness or rigpa. My understanding of the three kayas is that these three in the order given above are: nirmanakaya, sambhogakaya and dharmakaya.

Bhumis

In Open Heart-style of vajrayana buddhist practice we use Open Heart Bhumi Model as our path map. In my experience, the question about the space-aspect of awareness is solved with the opening of the 11^th bhumi. At this point, after 11 major shifts, rigpa becomes one's default mode of being and the confusion between three-dimensional mind and zero-dimensional rigpa-awareness is clarified. There is no way one could be confused about 3-D and 0-D after this, unless momentarily during dark night. This stage also makes one understand about the difference between mindfulness or concentration-based and awareness-based training paradigms. I have talked about this here, for example.

Dynamic Concentration

Traditional concentration practices operate under the laws and functions of the energetic body and all types of concentration practices from zen-style samadhi to theravadan jhanas happen within the samsaric mind, not beyond it. Dynamic Concentration, on the other hand, with its explosive power, cuts through all and any layers of the samsaric mind and consequentially, leaves no other option than for rigpa-awareness to show up. There is no other option that the self-recognition of it which is done by no one.

The reason why Open Heart-practitioners have so many shifts in perception so quickly is mostly because of Dynamic Concentration. Dynamic Concentration does not work on the terms set up by samsaric mind and because of this the most foundational of our bodies can be recognised so effectively through this exercise. My second book, What's Next? On Post-Awakening Practice, describes this and the process in detail through practitioners' written accounts and photographs. It even works for people who use it apart from tantric practice, as you can read here.

So, the confusion of space goes with the opening of mahasiddha bhumis. After this the self-invested concept of existence in space ceases to be a cause of confusion.

Emptiness of Time:

From 3-D to Zero-D

In my experience, emptiness of time, came with the perfection of the 7^th bhumi. Prior to this event, perfection of the 7^th bhumi, I hadn't given much thought to time or the idea of passing of time, although through glimpsing of the natural state I had seen countless times how different the experience of it was in comparison to the usual mind or self that exists in time and space. But conceptually I hadn't contemplated it.

So, in my practice, Open Heart Yoga mainly, I had this shift, similar to bhumi openings and other bhumi perfections, and for a moment I had to conceptualize what was it that I had un-conceptualized. Then I realized that the perception or idea of time was no longer the same it was before. The flavour of this insight was not any different than any of the previous insights into the emptiness of self and phenomena. It was just a part of my deeply ingrained self, in the form of existing in time, that was no longer there and again the living experience was fuller than it was before.

Thank you,

-Kim Katami

Open Heart Sangha,

www.en.openheart.fi