Below is an extract from One Taste by Ken Wilber. It is part of an interview of him by Pathways magazine ('A magazine of Psychological and Spiritual Transformation'). It is interesting because Wilber believes that meditation can give you direct experience of what can be called either God or Brahman or Spirit (he uses all three terms in his book). He thinks that it can be proven in much the same way that any fact can be proven.
PATHWAYS: But what about the notion that these experiences of "One Taste" or "Kosmic Consciousness" are just the by-product of meditation, and therefore aren't "really real"?
KW: Well, that can be said of any type of knowledge that depends on an instrument. "Kosmic Consciousness" often depends on the instrument of meditation. So what? Seeing the nucleus of a cell depends on a microscope. Do we then say that the cell nucleus isn't real because it's only the by-product of a microscope? Do we say the moons of Jupiter aren't real because they depend on a telescope? The people who raise this objection are almost always people who don't want to look through the instrument of meditation, just as the Churchmen refused to look through Galileo's telescope and thus acknowledge the moons of Jupiter. Let them live with their refusal. But let us - to the best of our ability, and hopefully driven by the best of charity or compassion - try to convince them to look, just once, and see for themselves. Not coerce them, just invite them. I suspect a different world might open for them, a world that has been abundantly verified by all who look through the telescope, and microscope, of meditation.
PATHWAYS: Could you tell us ...
KW: If I could interrupt, do you mind if I give you one of my favourite quotes from Aldous Huxley?
PATHWAYS: Please.
KW: This is from After Many a Summer Dies the Swan:
"I like the words I use to bear some relation to facts. That's why I'm interested in eternity - psychological eternity. Because it's a fact."
"For you perhaps," said Jeremy.
"For anyone who chooses to fulfill the conditions under which it can be experienced."
"And why should anyone wish to fulfill them?"
"Why should anyone choose to go to Athens to see the Parthenon? Because it's worth the bother. And the same is true of eternity. The experience of timeless good is worth all the trouble involved."
"Timeless good," Jeremy repeated with distaste. "I don't know what the words mean."
"Why should you?" said Mr. Propter. "You've never bought your ticket to Athens."
PATHWAYS: So contemplation is the ticket to Athens?
KW: Don't you think?
The problem with this argument is that in reading Wilber's account of his spiritual experiences the only proof it offers is that there is a state of consciousness where you perceive that everything is part of you. That's all. It is not direct experience of God or Brahman or Spirit. It's not even proof that when you perceive that everything is part of you it is a correct perception: some perceptions are false.
I realize that part of his argument is that you're never going to see God. You can't see God, you can only be God, and look out on the world through God's eyes. He is the see-er who cannot be seen. I understand the meaning of this theory, especially after the 'pointing out instructions' earlier in the book. That doesn't alter the fact that God, Brahman or Spirit have not been proved.
Now that I know what pointing out instructions are in detail I am no longer impressed by them. I don't see how anyone is going to get a sudden enlightenment from them, which is what authors like Sam Harris believe. I have mentioned nondualists and their pointing out instructions in earlier posts on this blog, I doubt if I'm going to be mentioning them again.
There was a man who looked at Mars through a telescope and thought that he could see lines on the surface. He called them 'canali' which means 'channels' in Italian but which became translated into 'canals' in English. He believed they were evidence for a civilization on Mars. Many people believed years ago that there was proof of a Martian civilization that dug canals.
When you look at Mars through a telescope, you can see the disk of the planet and then perhaps shifting patterns of relative light or dark. That's all. They went too far in saying they had proof of a civilization there. So too people like Wilber go too far in saying they have proof of God, Brahman or Spirit. Or that there are higher levels of reality. Or that One Taste is something spiritual and not just neurological.
In the book he talks about the marriage of Buddha and Freud. Not a nice image. What he means is that Eastern mysticism should be combined with Western psychology to create a more complete system. You can be enlightened and still be selfish and immature. Without the ability to relax fully you will find it difficult to enter the depths of meditation. I used to believe that.
The interesting thing though is that Buddha did not teach a belief in God, Brahman or Spirit. Teachers in India who came before him taught the existence of Brahman, but Buddha went against that. This is the most important thing about Buddha, yet Wilber doesn't understand it. I know that his favoured forms of Buddhism are Mahayana and Vajrayana but even so he shouldn't be letting people think that all meditators come out of meditation with the same insights. That's not true.
Tuesday, March 31, 2020
review of One Taste part 1
People say that you can't learn anything about enlightenment from books. It has to be personal experience. Books, however, are records of personal experiences. Also, how do you know that your enlightenment is the same as other people's enlightenment? How do you know that it is enlightenment at all?
Are we not all familiar with the idea that someone can think they are enlightened and yet there is another level beyond what they have reached? John Yarr used to say that Buddha had only got to the level of 'going beyond form'. I don't believe that. I don't believe John Yarr got as far as Buddha.
Ken Wilber has a lot of theory that I have found meaningless and pretentious. He is interesting however when writing about his own spiritual experiences.
I have said that I think the Lifewave enlightenment is the same as what Ken Wilber calls 'One Taste'. I am reading one of his books now that goes into greater detail. Both Suzanne Segal and Malcolm seemed to be saying that you get enlightenment suddenly and in one go then it's a permanent state of consciousness. Perhaps it was for them but Wilber says that he does not maintain this state for long periods of time.
In this passage from 'One Taste' by Wilber he is on holiday and spending a lot of time in the sea.
"I had fully expected to lose all access to the Witness, given our vino schedule. And for the first night and day this happened. But floating in the water has not only brought back the Witness, it seems to have facilitated the disappearance of the Witness into the nondual One Taste, at least on occasion. (The Witness, or pure witnessing awareness, tends to be of the causal, since there is usually a primitive trace of subject/object duality: you equanimously Witness the world as transparent and shimmering object. But with further development, the Witness itself disappears into everything that is witnessed, subject and object become One Taste, or simple Suchness, and this is the nondual estate. In short: ego to soul to pure Witness to One Taste.) So I am utterly, pleasantly surprised, floating here in nature's blood, to be dipped into One Taste, which in this case, is nicely salty.
There is no time in this estate, although time passes through it. Clouds float by in the sky, thoughts float by in the mind, waves float by in the ocean, and I am all of that. I am looking at none of it, for there is no center around which perception is organized. It is simply that everything is arising, moment to moment, and I am all of that. I do not see the sky, I am the sky, which sees itself. I do not feel the ocean, I am the ocean, which feels itself. I do not hear the birds, I am the birds, which hear themselves. There is nothing outside of me, there is nothing inside of me, because there is no me - there is simply all of this, and it has always been so.
My ankle hurts from dancing last night, so there is pain, but the pain doesn't hurt me, for there is no me. There is simply pain, and it is arising just like everything else - birds, waves, clouds, thoughts. I am none of them, I am all of them, it's all the same One Taste. This in not a trance, or a lessening of consciousness, but rather an intensification of it - not subconcious but superconscious, not infra-rational but super-rational. There is a crystal-clear awareness of everything that is arising, moment to moment, it's just not happening to anybody. This is not an out-of-the-body experience; I am not looking down; I am not looking at all; and I am not above or below anything - I am everything. There is simply all of this, and I am that.
Most of all, One Taste is utter simplicity. With mystical experiences in the subtle and causal, there is often a sense of grandeur, of ominous awesomeness, of numinous overwhelmingness, of light and bliss and beatitude, of gratefulness and tears of joy. But not with One Taste, which is extraordinarily ordinary, and perfectly simple: just this.
I stay here, neck deep in water, for three hours. How much of it I spend as ego, as Witness, or as One Taste, I don't know. There is always the sense, with One Taste, that you have never left it, no matter how confused you get, and therefore there is never really the sense that you are entering or leaving it. It is just so, always and forever, even now, and even unto the ends of the world."
Wilber writes that this isn't a permanent state for him. It can last for 24 - 36 hours, and once it lasted for eleven days. He says he believes that for some people it is permanent, including several teachers that he has met.
The other surprising thing to me about this passage is that he seems to have moved from what some people call One Mind or One Taste to what some people call No Mind. When he writes "I do not see the sky, I am the sky, which sees itself" etc what does this mean?
I don't believe that it literally means that the sky sees itself. This is his perception. It's as if consciousness has become fragmented. Differerent parts of the brain are processing sensory information, with no centre, no self. One Mind (or One Taste) means that everything seems to be part of you. No Mind means that there is no you. What is it that perceives sensory information when there is no you? It's as if they perceive themselves: sensations appear to be what some people call 'self-knowing knowns'.
There is seeing be no see-er. There is hearing but no hearer. There is thinking but no thinker.
Some people will say that One Mind and No Mind are the same. If you are everything then you are nothing. I don't think so. They have different characteristics. Is it possible for One Mind to shift into No Mind all by itself? I don't know. It's possible that it only happened to Wilber because one of the many forms of meditation he practiced was vipassana. Or it might just require a shift of perspective.
Are we not all familiar with the idea that someone can think they are enlightened and yet there is another level beyond what they have reached? John Yarr used to say that Buddha had only got to the level of 'going beyond form'. I don't believe that. I don't believe John Yarr got as far as Buddha.
Ken Wilber has a lot of theory that I have found meaningless and pretentious. He is interesting however when writing about his own spiritual experiences.
I have said that I think the Lifewave enlightenment is the same as what Ken Wilber calls 'One Taste'. I am reading one of his books now that goes into greater detail. Both Suzanne Segal and Malcolm seemed to be saying that you get enlightenment suddenly and in one go then it's a permanent state of consciousness. Perhaps it was for them but Wilber says that he does not maintain this state for long periods of time.
In this passage from 'One Taste' by Wilber he is on holiday and spending a lot of time in the sea.
"I had fully expected to lose all access to the Witness, given our vino schedule. And for the first night and day this happened. But floating in the water has not only brought back the Witness, it seems to have facilitated the disappearance of the Witness into the nondual One Taste, at least on occasion. (The Witness, or pure witnessing awareness, tends to be of the causal, since there is usually a primitive trace of subject/object duality: you equanimously Witness the world as transparent and shimmering object. But with further development, the Witness itself disappears into everything that is witnessed, subject and object become One Taste, or simple Suchness, and this is the nondual estate. In short: ego to soul to pure Witness to One Taste.) So I am utterly, pleasantly surprised, floating here in nature's blood, to be dipped into One Taste, which in this case, is nicely salty.
There is no time in this estate, although time passes through it. Clouds float by in the sky, thoughts float by in the mind, waves float by in the ocean, and I am all of that. I am looking at none of it, for there is no center around which perception is organized. It is simply that everything is arising, moment to moment, and I am all of that. I do not see the sky, I am the sky, which sees itself. I do not feel the ocean, I am the ocean, which feels itself. I do not hear the birds, I am the birds, which hear themselves. There is nothing outside of me, there is nothing inside of me, because there is no me - there is simply all of this, and it has always been so.
My ankle hurts from dancing last night, so there is pain, but the pain doesn't hurt me, for there is no me. There is simply pain, and it is arising just like everything else - birds, waves, clouds, thoughts. I am none of them, I am all of them, it's all the same One Taste. This in not a trance, or a lessening of consciousness, but rather an intensification of it - not subconcious but superconscious, not infra-rational but super-rational. There is a crystal-clear awareness of everything that is arising, moment to moment, it's just not happening to anybody. This is not an out-of-the-body experience; I am not looking down; I am not looking at all; and I am not above or below anything - I am everything. There is simply all of this, and I am that.
Most of all, One Taste is utter simplicity. With mystical experiences in the subtle and causal, there is often a sense of grandeur, of ominous awesomeness, of numinous overwhelmingness, of light and bliss and beatitude, of gratefulness and tears of joy. But not with One Taste, which is extraordinarily ordinary, and perfectly simple: just this.
I stay here, neck deep in water, for three hours. How much of it I spend as ego, as Witness, or as One Taste, I don't know. There is always the sense, with One Taste, that you have never left it, no matter how confused you get, and therefore there is never really the sense that you are entering or leaving it. It is just so, always and forever, even now, and even unto the ends of the world."
Wilber writes that this isn't a permanent state for him. It can last for 24 - 36 hours, and once it lasted for eleven days. He says he believes that for some people it is permanent, including several teachers that he has met.
The other surprising thing to me about this passage is that he seems to have moved from what some people call One Mind or One Taste to what some people call No Mind. When he writes "I do not see the sky, I am the sky, which sees itself" etc what does this mean?
I don't believe that it literally means that the sky sees itself. This is his perception. It's as if consciousness has become fragmented. Differerent parts of the brain are processing sensory information, with no centre, no self. One Mind (or One Taste) means that everything seems to be part of you. No Mind means that there is no you. What is it that perceives sensory information when there is no you? It's as if they perceive themselves: sensations appear to be what some people call 'self-knowing knowns'.
There is seeing be no see-er. There is hearing but no hearer. There is thinking but no thinker.
Some people will say that One Mind and No Mind are the same. If you are everything then you are nothing. I don't think so. They have different characteristics. Is it possible for One Mind to shift into No Mind all by itself? I don't know. It's possible that it only happened to Wilber because one of the many forms of meditation he practiced was vipassana. Or it might just require a shift of perspective.
Wednesday, March 11, 2020
enlightenment book
I have come across an interesting book partly about enlightenment called "The Buddha is still teaching Contemporary Buddhist Wisdom". It is a compilation of writings from many authors from different spiritual traditions selected and edited by Jack Kornfield.
Most people who come to this blog won't be from the Buddhist tradition but the first of the two quotations applies to everyone who is interested in enlightenment.
p 201 BECOMING ENLIGHTENED
I think that this quotation sums up what enlightenment is. It is nothing more than this. The second quotation tries to take it further and comes to a wrong conclusion. At one time I would have believed it but I don't now.
p 205 NIRVANA
Most people who come to this blog won't be from the Buddhist tradition but the first of the two quotations applies to everyone who is interested in enlightenment.
p 201 BECOMING ENLIGHTENED
Before becoming enlightened you just think that you are here and things that are not you are over there, and you are unable to take even one step out of a dualist world. Experience enlightenment, even shallow enlightenment, and you naturally understand that the thought of "objects over there" is completely mistaken - you have opened your eyes on a world where the totality is yourself. This is enlightenment.Taizan Maezumi in The Hazy Moon of Enlightenment: Part of the On Zen Practice Collection, by Taizan Maezumi and Bernie Glassman
I think that this quotation sums up what enlightenment is. It is nothing more than this. The second quotation tries to take it further and comes to a wrong conclusion. At one time I would have believed it but I don't now.
p 205 NIRVANA
The word nirvana ... means extinction of thirst and the annihilation of suffering. Buddhist masters teach that within each of us there is always a fire. Sometimes this fire is quietly smoldering; other times it is raging out of control. This fire is caused by the friction of duality rubbing against itself, like two sticks. This friction is generated by me (as subject) wanting other (as object) and the interaction between the two. This ever-present friction that irritates us blazes up into the fires of suffering. When we realize emptiness and perfect oneness with all, the fires of duality go out. When even the embers themselves are cool, when conflicting emotions are no longer burning us - this is nirvana, the end of dissatisfaction and suffering. This is liberation; this is bliss; this is true freedom.
The freedom from craving spoken of by the Buddha is an inconceivable inner peace, a sense of at-one-ness and completion.
The lasting happiness the Buddha speaks of does not mean having no personality or passion. Desirelessness means lacking nothing. Consider this possibility ... for your life.Lama Surya Das, Awakening the Buddha Within: Tibetan Wisdom for the Western World
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)