It has been 18 months since I wrote my dependent origination post and retreat report so I’d like to clarify my thoughts on TWIM (tranquil wisdom insight meditation), definitions of Nibbana and subsequent changes in perception which have occurred since. In modern dharma there is contention over definitions of the various terms used here. One tradition or teacher defines Jhana a certain way, while another departs from the definition entirely. This is extremely confusing for students and practitioners as clearly there is no way to determine who’s version is correct. Authority and given interpretations of the early discourses and commentaries are what modern traditions rely on. This has resulted in division, debate and ultimately is not resolvable even through direct experience. While it is not possible, in my opinion, to know what the Buddha’s Jhanas were or if the cessation of perception and feeling (nirdoha samapatti) practiced in TWIM is the same as that which is delineated in Suttas, we can test experientially these variations.
Although I’m more inclined to adhere to the commentarial tradition’s definition of Jhana as requiring a nimitta, it cannot be denied at all that TWIM reliably produces cessation events. TWIM and traditions within and outside Theravada Buddhism have specific definitions for what constitutes a path moment, a fruition moment and for seeing dependent origination. Given that such are based on interpretations of the early discourses or commentaries, they are by definition provisional, as much as we would like them to be otherwise. All modern path confirmations— stream entry, once returner, non-returner and arahant are by proxy, provisional. Modern path confirmations are unverifiable because they are inferential, irrespective of the teacher that is making such determinations. I of course may be wrong in my assessment here.
In the Suttas it says “he who sees dependent origination sees the Dhamma, he who sees the Dhamma sees dependent origination.” While I don’t propose a specific or singular meaning of the passage I will mention 2 primary findings which have emerged since writing my original dependent origination post.
In “post-cessation” the mind can arise as 2 or more realities simultaneously. This mind-split effect is how it is possible for mind to ascertain both an asankhata-dhamma (unconditioned-reality) and dependent origination at the same time via a mind-split/dual reality phenomena. The mind arises as both (1) an unconditioned dimensionless reality & (2) as the disk/links of dependent origination simultaneously. In other words the usual single person point of view structure of consciousness/experience splits into a dual screen structure. Mind experiences 2 realities at once.
Cessation is NOT an actual absence of consciousness it is merely the absence of recollection. If cessation is not a vanishing of mind/reality then what is it? It seems based on subsequent investigation that the cessation event is actually an experience so far removed from conditioned and conventional reality that it initially cannot be recollected or reconstructed after the re-emergence of the experiential field. In later cessations the mind did not vanish but instead entered what could only be described as quantum omnipresence. It seems, somehow that the mind arises as the entirety of samsara & nirvana. Samsara as a reality of conditioned existence and Nirvana as a reality that I could only describe as the Buddha-matrix. Infinitudes of Buddhas minds. It defies description and is even more so less definable than the nibba-dhatu as defined in TWIM. It is a quantum non-local "ground" of pure potentiality collapsing itself to produce every particle of localized definable reality. In subsequent months and years the mind has experienced this and recalls it upon emerging from sleep. It is best described in quote from Meher Baba “when the body sleeps, you awaken as infinity.” This is distinguished from the vastness of realm of infinite consciousness samadhi in which the mind appears as a cosmic consciousness vast and boundless. All samadhi and formless states are still single screen point of view realities. In quantum infinity however, mind arises as all screens, all places, all points of localization. It is inconceivable and indescribable. Whether this is the actual Nibbana of Theravada Buddhism or any form of Buddhism, I do not know nor would I propose it to be. It is only my report on what is beyond cessation as it is generally defined.
There is an experiential difference between micro cessations and what I call “macro cessation” events.
What is often defined as cessation in modern dharma is a momentary on/off flash of the experiential field. These cessations are barely noticeable and in honesty, I have difficulty regarding them as cessations at all. They are not comparable to the kind of cessations I’ve described in my original retreat report and in my personal practice, I distinguish between the two. What I’m calling a macro-cessation event is defined as the undeniable vanishing and reappearance of reality.
There does not seem to be any relationship between cessation events, micro or macro, and a persistent or natural non-duality.
A question I am often asked by students is if cessation does not produce a permanent collapse of the subject-object split then what is the point in pursuing it all? The function of cessation is that via the purity of mind, post macro-cessation and seeing/arising as dependent origination, it is possible to ascertain the 3 superknowledges the Buddha spoke of under the Bodhi tree. To be clear, neither in my initial post nor since, has it been possible to ascertain the 2nd superknowledge, which is insight into the wheel of transmigration and into the nature of cause and effect. While cessation does not produce non-duality, I argue, it certainly produces knowledge and vision. It is also likely that unless one is a Buddha, the 3 super knowledges are spectrums of insight— meaning realization of them may not be a singular event.
All this being said, it must be stated that I have not found any relationship between non-duality, cessation and the permanent destruction of the defilements as indicated in the Suttas. Whether it be infinite omnipresence, the dimensionless nibbana-element or seeing the links or dependent origination, I cannot profess any permanent destruction of craving has occurred nor is likely even possible through the aforementioned states, at least to the extent of which I have experienced them.
If anything this should make us wonder “if none of the above produces the destruction of craving— what does?” This line of thinking opens two considerations. Firstly, that what may result in a destruction of craving, clinging and attachment is yet to be discovered, therefore it should be discovered or secondly that our interpretations of the Buddhas attainments are not literal and that a permanent end to the defilements is not actually possible.
“Realizations” which have occurred since.
There is great freedom in being liberated from fixed views and although this opens one to the possibility of mistaking path and practice in “accordance with the dharma” with non-dharma, it offers the potential for an explorative orientation to awakening and realization. The primary and most notable change in recent years has been a particular and noteworthy falling away in regard to perception. Like how the subject-object split collapsed at a given moment in time, the perception of the “here-ness” of objects/experience has vanished and did cease in a specific instance.
It’s likely the case that most people have an inner sense for the perception of time. Similarly, there is an inner sense for the perception and presence of objects— for the sense of here-ness that is attributed to consciousness/experience. In non-dual awakening as I’ve come to know it, the distinction between objects, consciousness, experience and reality, vanishes. This inner sense of the hereness of the experiential field has vanished so there’s the undeniable sense that objects are not present at all. In the words of Peter Brown “none of this here.”
Instead, all objects arise as illumination itself— immaculate vividness, beginning-less perfection, unobstructed samadhi, all which likely and may mean nothing to some readers. While I have found that clinging is no longer possible, I cannot deny that craving still is. This deconditioning or falling away has not resulted from TWIM or from any specific meditation practice.
Irrespective of the quantum non-locality described earlier in this article, it is undeniable that all states are within experience. All states are within consciousness, otherwise they would not be recollectable or describable. None whatsoever are apart from or outside reality. That being said, the most profound shift is the cessation of fixation on experience. The mind ceases to reach for the past, the present or the future. It becomes unconcerned and unattached to anything and everything. It is freed, not through specific experience per say, but through irreversible shifts in recognition, perception and understanding.
There is the realization of anutpada which means non-arisen. It is realized clearly that nothing is happening. The flux of the experiential field, the change of the seasons, the myriad bodies and minds lost in samsara have no effect on reality. Reality is neither increasing nor decreasing. Reality is never coming or going. We cannot say it is or isn't because we have nothing to compare it to. Reality has no opposite.