Ingram, et al - "Hard Core Dharma" & claims of attainment

Exploring Theravāda's connections to other paths - what can we learn from other traditions, religions and philosophies?
Reductor
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Re: Ingram, et al - "Hard Core Dharma" & claims of attainment

Post by Reductor »

Clayton wrote:Hey this is Clayton, I was the third voice in that recording. I had quickly risen up to the state which we refer to as the 8th jhana... experiencing neither perception nor non perception. Coming out of it I mentioned it for the recording. We practice something called dynamic jhana which is not as absorbed as the jhana talked about in the suttras. Now I can get much more absorbed than we were, but we just wanted to give everyone a taste of the jhanas or strata of mind.

Clayton
Pardon my doubts, Clayton. I have a few.

But as your practice doesn't impinge on my own, I suppose you are welcome to see what you want as you want. As for giving everyone a taste: I don't know that 'taste' comes by ear at all, let alone by ear alone. So pardon me in thinking that much of this is simply talk, or perhaps a redefining of what these attainments are.

But considering that you have volunteered a defense of the recording, I will ask you a question.

In what sense are we to understand the word 'dynamic'?

Thanks for your answer.
alan
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Re: Ingram, et al - "Hard Core Dharma" & claims of attainment

Post by alan »

That is the funny thing about delusion--you don't know when you're in it.
Dynamic Jhana--wow! You must be so cool. Sure wish I could go there.
Clayton
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Re: Ingram, et al - "Hard Core Dharma" & claims of attainment

Post by Clayton »


Pardon my doubts, Clayton. I have a few.

But as your practice doesn't impinge on my own, I suppose you are welcome to see what you want as you want.
No need to pardon anything. I would be worried if you didn't have doubts.
As for giving everyone a taste: I don't know that 'taste' comes by ear at all, let alone by ear alone. So pardon me in thinking that much of this is simply talk, or perhaps a redefining of what these attainments are.
Uhh... I am well aware of how the sense doors operate. This was something my dharma brothers and me thought might be helpfull for those who wished to get a broad auidio overview of what we experience the nanas and jhanas to be.
But considering that you have volunteered a defense of the recording, I will ask you a question.

In what sense are we to understand the word 'dynamic'?

Thanks for your answer.
I have volunteered no defense of this recording. I have tried to make a simple clairification. I am not here to defend what we believe/experience against what the Dhamma Wheel community believes/experiences. Like you, other's method of practice doesn't really affect me. I just thought I would try to resolve that ambiguity.

The word dynamic has been clarified rather well by a quote on the previous page. I guess the simplest way to explain it is to see concentration and vipassana as two ends of the same spectrum. The harder the absorbtion is the less you can tear it down based on the 3 characteristics. If there is just the vipassana with near no concentration that can stall out rather quickly. So for me dynamic simply means being in the stratum of mind which can be turned into an absorbtion, but not getting so absorbed that the 3 characteristics are not clearly percieved.
Clayton
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Re: Ingram, et al - "Hard Core Dharma" & claims of attainment

Post by Clayton »

alan wrote:That is the funny thing about delusion--you don't know when you're in it.
Dynamic Jhana--wow! You must be so cool. Sure wish I could go there.
Yeah I am pretty cool, thank you for noticing. You know what I don't think is cool though, Slander...

Do not consider the faults of others
Or what they have or haven’t done.
Consider rather
What you yourself have or haven’t done.

- The Dhammapada
alan
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Re: Ingram, et al - "Hard Core Dharma" & claims of attainment

Post by alan »

Make sense, please.
No one is making any sense.
P.S. Slander--that is a serious charge. But you haven't read the Suttas, have you?
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Ben
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Re: Ingram, et al - "Hard Core Dharma" & claims of attainment

Post by Ben »

Hi Clayton and welcome to Dhamma Wheel,
Clayton wrote: The word dynamic has been clarified rather well by a quote on the previous page. I guess the simplest way to explain it is to see concentration and vipassana as two ends of the same spectrum. The harder the absorbtion is the less you can tear it down based on the 3 characteristics. If there is just the vipassana with near no concentration that can stall out rather quickly. So for me dynamic simply means being in the stratum of mind which can be turned into an absorbtion, but not getting so absorbed that the 3 characteristics are not clearly percieved.
This indicates to me, based on my readings and understanding of the Pali Canon and commentarial literature, as well as my own experience, that what you are referring to is not jhana. I agree with assertions made here that there seems to be a redefinition of certain attainments within the hardcore movement as they bear very little relation to the recorded wisdom and lived experience within the Theravada. That is not to say you are not experiencing exotic states of mind, but I would caution you that it may not be evidence of liberation nor progress towards liberation.
One thing we should always to is to scrutinize any unusual meditative experience we may have. As I have mentioned time and again, the Buddha warns us in the Brahmajala Sutta that meditative experiences are a primary source of wrong view. We should scrutinize the experience and examine whether it evokes a pleasurable sensation and if so whether the sensation is derived as a result of the experience appealing to our own predispositions. Be mindful Clayton that not everything is what it seems, particularly so in the realm of the mind.
kind regards

Ben
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alan
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Re: Ingram, et al - "Hard Core Dharma" & claims of attainment

Post by alan »

In other words, its a fraud.
Clayton
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Re: Ingram, et al - "Hard Core Dharma" & claims of attainment

Post by Clayton »

Thank you for your respectful response Ben. I understand your position. You are correct that what I call Jhana does not line up with some of the Suttras and Commentaries. I accept that. Indeed it is important to tend towards caution when assessing our progress. I have checked my experience with not only my friends in the hardcore community but also strict Vinaya Monks... its good to get a 2nd opinion...

Clayton
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Re: Ingram, et al - "Hard Core Dharma" & claims of attainment

Post by Reductor »

Clayton wrote:
Uhh... I am well aware of how the sense doors operate. This was something my dharma brothers and me thought might be helpfull for those who wished to get a broad auidio overview of what we experience the nanas and jhanas to be.
Sorry, my humor is a little different.

I mean that discussion of your experiences as they unfold seems a pretty ineffective way to instruct, but would be a good way to impress. In addition to that would be miscommunication of what you're experiencing, as in the quote about you being "in the eight". Phrased in the present tense, this suggests that you are speaking from the attainment and gives no hint that you've come out if it and are speaking in normal space (so to speak).
But considering that you have volunteered a defense of the recording, I will ask you a question.

In what sense are we to understand the word 'dynamic'?

Thanks for your answer.
I have volunteered no defense of this recording. I have tried to make a simple clairification.
To make a defense does not mean that you are 'defensive' in the emotive sense of an aversive reaction to perceived attack. I mean that there is a criticism made and you responded to allay the cause of that criticism.

The word dynamic has been clarified rather well by a quote on the previous page. I guess the simplest way to explain it is to see concentration and vipassana as two ends of the same spectrum. The harder the absorbtion is the less you can tear it down based on the 3 characteristics. If there is just the vipassana with near no concentration that can stall out rather quickly. So for me dynamic simply means being in the stratum of mind which can be turned into an absorbtion, but not getting so absorbed that the 3 characteristics are not clearly percieved.
My trouble with your above statement is that the eighth attainment does not provide a clear position from which to evaluate the experience. Rather there is only the sense that phenomena continue in a shapeless, nebulous, way. How then, from such a state, can there be vipassana?

Which brings me to my next question. What is the characteristic of the eighth absorption, according to the hardcore folks?
owenbecker
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Re: Ingram, et al - "Hard Core Dharma" & claims of attainment

Post by owenbecker »

Hey Clayton,
Probably best not bothering with these guys. They seem to have overdosed on the medicine.
-o
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tiltbillings
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Re: Ingram, et al - "Hard Core Dharma" & claims of attainment

Post by tiltbillings »

alan wrote:In other words, its a fraud.
One might want to be a little more temperate with how one expresses this. Fraud would indicate a deliberate misleading of other. As indicated, what we have with the self-described hard-core movement is a wholesale redefining of terms such as jhana and arahant to fit with the experience of its leaders. I think they mean well, but are a bit mistaken.
>> Do you see a man wise [enlightened/ariya] in his own eyes? There is more hope for a fool than for him.<< -- Proverbs 26:12

This being is bound to samsara, kamma is his means for going beyond. -- SN I, 38.

“Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?” HPatDH p.723
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tiltbillings
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Re: Ingram, et al - "Hard Core Dharma" & claims of attainment

Post by tiltbillings »

Clayton wrote:
alan wrote:That is the funny thing about delusion--you don't know when you're in it.
Dynamic Jhana--wow! You must be so cool. Sure wish I could go there.
Yeah I am pretty cool, thank you for noticing. You know what I don't think is cool though, Slander...

Do not consider the faults of others
Or what they have or haven’t done.
Consider rather
What you yourself have or haven’t done.

- The Dhammapada
Like the inaccurate, but nasty referring to those who do not see a need to blab their attainment as mushroom people fed on merde?
Kenneth: There’s a kind of a culture that has grown up in Theravada Buddhism that it is shameful to admit that you have attained any of this. That nice people don’t talk about this, kind of in the way that nice people don’t look up ladies’ skirts. This is a shameful thing, and probably this came about from the rules for monks. Monks are not allowed to claim any state or attainment except to other monks. And for better or worse, I think for worse, we developed, especially in the West, what Bill Hamilton called the “mushroom culture.” By mushroom, he said, “Keep them in the dark and feed them stuff.”

Vince: You mean shit? [laughs]

Kenneth: That’s exactly what I’m talking about.
http://www.buddhistgeeks.com/2010/02/bg ... alization/
>> Do you see a man wise [enlightened/ariya] in his own eyes? There is more hope for a fool than for him.<< -- Proverbs 26:12

This being is bound to samsara, kamma is his means for going beyond. -- SN I, 38.

“Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?” HPatDH p.723
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tiltbillings
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Re: Ingram, et al - "Hard Core Dharma" & claims of attainment

Post by tiltbillings »

Clayton wrote:Thank you for your respectful response Ben. I understand your position. You are correct that what I call Jhana does not line up with some of the Suttras and Commentaries. I accept that. Indeed it is important to tend towards caution when assessing our progress. I have checked my experience with not only my friends in the hardcore community but also strict Vinaya Monks... its good to get a 2nd opinion...

Clayton
I think is a good point, which points the fact that the hard-core-ites are not talking about Theravada or the suttas or the commentaries or Buddhism in general. This is essentially an admission that they are talking about Folk and Ingram's reinterpretation of Buddhism, which, as we have seen here, has little to really do with the teachings of the Buddha.
>> Do you see a man wise [enlightened/ariya] in his own eyes? There is more hope for a fool than for him.<< -- Proverbs 26:12

This being is bound to samsara, kamma is his means for going beyond. -- SN I, 38.

“Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?” HPatDH p.723
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tiltbillings
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Re: Ingram, et al - "Hard Core Dharma" & claims of attainment

Post by tiltbillings »

owenbecker wrote:Hey Clayton,
Probably best not bothering with these guys. They seem to have overdosed on the medicine.
-o
You are completely missing the problem. Actually a number of us have. It is spelled out neatly here:
Clayton wrote:Thank you for your respectful response Ben. I understand your position. You are correct that what I call Jhana does not line up with some of the Suttas and Commentaries. I accept that. Indeed it is important to tend towards caution when assessing our progress. I have checked my experience with not only my friends in the hardcore community but also strict Vinaya Monks... its good to get a 2nd opinion...

Clayton
In other words we are not talking about the same things at all. Folk and Ingram have simply re-interpreted the vocabulary of the Dhamma to become something else altogether.
>> Do you see a man wise [enlightened/ariya] in his own eyes? There is more hope for a fool than for him.<< -- Proverbs 26:12

This being is bound to samsara, kamma is his means for going beyond. -- SN I, 38.

“Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?” HPatDH p.723
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Re: Ingram, et al - "Hard Core Dharma" & claims of attainment

Post by elcfa »

tiltbillings wrote:Folk and Ingram has simply re-interpreted the vocabulary of the Dhamma to become something else altogether.
This is exactly what bothers me a lot and used to confuse the hell out of me.

I was trying very hard to see where I got my understanding of the suttas (as well as my meditation practice) so different from their interpretation.

It was until I heard Ingram in his latest talk about AF (Actual Freedom) posted in his website saying "Neither what I called Arahat ... lined up with the Arahatship found in the old texts" (found at 4'50'' on this first talk with Tarin Greco, if you think I am misquoting him) that I came to the same conclusion that the whole thing is just 'Freestyling' Dharma. :jawdrop:
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