This surprised me, because there are 2+ thoroughly-awakened people in my social circle. And that's just in meatspace. Online, I've interacted with a couple others. Plus I met someone with Stream Entry at Less Online last year. That brings the total to a minimum of 5, but it's probably at least 7+.
How do you tell? How would I discern someone else's state of enlightenment? Or my own?
I am not asking out of scepticism. A problem I have understanding the whole meditation/enlightenment/jhanas/arahant/stream-entry/QRI/etc. collection of ideas is that despite trying, I have never been able to find myself on the maps of this territory that people present. I have experienced no unusual states of consciousness from the various suggested activities, and no intimations of being in the presence of someone who had something real to teach.
This is indeed a hard problem, hence why this stuff is so illegible. First I'll define how I use these terms.
- Meditation is sitting quietly and stabilizing your mind. (Technically-speaking, some people consider zazen meditation-adjacent and therefore technically not meditation. This distinction is not relevant to this post.)
- Jhanas are altered states of consciousness characterized by stability of attention. There are other altered states of consciousness relevant to Awakening, such as mushin.
- Stream Entry (aka Awakening) is the first big checkpoint on the meditative path. It's when a large chunk of your suffering drops away permanently because of a fundamental shifting in how your consciousness works. Under Zen dogma this happens suddenly, but I believe it can happen gradually.
- Arahant has a traditional Therevada definition that I don't use. In this post, I use Daniel Ingram's Revised Fourth Path mode. I feel the term is unwieldy due to the conflicting definitions. I used it for ease of readability, so that I didn't have to write "person with the fruit of the meditative path" over and over again.
- Enlightenment refers to someone who is perfectly realized. It doesn't really exist in our physical universe, but it's useful to aspire to, the way a Carnot Engine or "a perfectly beautiful painting" points in a useful direction. (Note: I do sometimes use "enlightenment" in other ways—just not in this post.)
- I don't know what you mean by QRI. I don't think you're referring to the Qualia Research Institute.
The first thing to understand is that altered states of consciousness like jhanas are instrumental. I mean, they're useful and pleasant, but they're somewhat orthogonal to altered traits. The Powers don't count as insight either. They're just a side-effect.
What matters are stages of insight. Whether these are discrete "stages" or a continuous process is not important. Sometimes these things happen suddenly, which makes them obvious to you; other times they sneak up on you gradually, over a period of time. That's why Awakened people sometimes don't even know they're Awakened. (And that's not even counting the rare people getting Awakened just randomly outside of a mystic context.)
Statistically-speaking, if you haven't done 100+[1] hours of meditation and/or had an obvious transformative experience that permanently altered your conscious perception of reality, then you're probably neurotypical, in this respect.
It's much easier to discern your own state of meditative insight than someone else's. Here are a few examples of signs you can use. All of them are difficult to communicate, since they're so non-normative. Do not take this list as authoritative.
- 85% or more of your suffering falls away suddenly. It's been a year since then and it still hasn't come back. (This can happen more than once, with compounding effects.)
- You no longer feel that your "self" is in a privileged position against the other stuff in your consciousness.
- You accidentally touch a hot stove and don't feel any pain. It's been months since your sensory inputs have congealed into pain.
- Your conscious perception of time and space break down such that they are directly perceived as mental constructs rather than immutable aspects of external reality.
Except now we have a problem, because the moment I list things like this, people who read the list will (mis?)report these experiences, even if they haven't had them. This happened to one of my teachers. Kriyas somehow entered the pop culture and then his students began reporting them. Which is stupid because kriyas are useful only as a metric of concentrative progress, and this wrecked the utility of kriyas as a metric of concentrative progress.
How would I discern someone else's state of enlightenment?
This is even harder than discerning your own level of insight. The most important thing is alignment of incentives—namely, to be in a community where nobody is incentivized to misreport. At my zendo, nobody ever talks about their own level of attainment except in one-on-one private dokusan with the head teacher. (You can talk about your own hinderances.) This isn't because there's a hard rule against it; it's just counterproductive, like eating junk food at Fat Camp.
But just because it's counterproductive to state your own level of attainment doesn't mean it's not useful to get a rough idea other peoples' level of attainment. I consider Zuiko an arahant because of how she talks about (or, more accurately, doesn't talk about) her health problems. Zuiko's hands are failing due to arthritis, but it doesn't seem to bother her. She pays more attention to my new scooter helmet.
…no intimations of being in the presence of someone who had something real to teach.
There's a autobiography Reports from the Zen Wars: The Impossible Rigor of a Questioning Life by Steve Antinoff. The author notices that a specific Zen Master is highly awakened and wants to become a disciple so he can be the same way. The book is a tragedy, because the author looks externally (to the Zen Master) for teaching, instead of to his own conscious experience.
I often encounter claims that it can thousands of hours of meditation to hit Stream Entry. For me, it took me significantly less than one thousand hours. ↩︎
Please do not torture any arahants without their consent lol.
It's a generalized pain transcendence, so there's no reason it would work any different for capsaicin than for heat. To my knowledge, science experiments studying this often use heat, because the threshold for intolerable pain is below the threshold for tissue damage.
1A quiz! (I am jokingly taking this in exactly the spirit you warned against.)
85% or more of your suffering falls away suddenly. It's been a year since then and it still hasn't come back. (This can happen more than once, with compounding effects.)
No, I've never had anything like this. My attitude is more, shit happens, I deal with it, and move on. (Because what's the alternative? Not dealing with it. Which never works.)
You no longer feel that your "self" is in a privileged position against the other stuff in your consciousness.
Does experiencing my "self" as including all that stuff count? I am guessing not. I have a strong sense of my own continuing presence.
You accidentally touch a hot stove and don't feel any pain. It's been months since your sensory inputs have congealed into pain.
Sounds dangerous. It was certainly painful when I closed a car door on my thumbnail a few months ago. (The new thumbnail may have grown back in another few months.)
Your conscious perception of time and space break down such that they are directly perceived as mental constructs rather than immutable aspects of external reality.
Way beyond me.
I seem to score a zero on this.
I'm sure I've notched up some 100s of hours of meditation, but spread over a rather large number of years, and rarely a daily practice.
shit happens, I deal with it, and move on. (Because what's the alternative? Not dealing with it.
1Hahaha!
Does experiencing my "self" as including all that stuff count? I am guessing not. I have a strong sense of my own continuing presence.
I'm not just talking about your thoughts and feelings. When I say "everything in your consciousness", I mean [what you perceive as] the Sun, other people, mountains in the distance, the dirt on your floor, etc.
You accidentally touch a hot stove and don't feel any pain. It's been months since your sensory inputs have congealed into pain.
Sounds dangerous.
Not really, unless you plan to light yourself on fire to protest something. It's still unpleasant, and the reactive instinct is still there.
I seem to score a zero on this…. I'm sure I've notched up some 100s of hours of meditation….
I think I hit this stuff with fewer hours of meditation than is typical, and that most people require more hours on the cushion. Also, it depends on what kind of meditation you do. Not everything branded as "meditation" is equally effective at jailbreaking the Matrix. Whether you're doing it badly is illegible too.
I'm not just talking about your thoughts and feelings. When I say "everything in your consciousness", I mean [what you perceive as] the Sun, other people, mountains in the distance, the dirt on your floor, etc.
To me, the Sun etc. are out there. My perceptions of them are in here. As anyone with consciousness of abstraction knows at a gut level, the perception is not the thing that gave rise to that perception. My perceptions are a part of myself. The Sun is not.
I don't know what you mean by QRI. I don't think you're referring to the Qualia Research Institute.
I am. I group it with all that other stuff, but perhaps you wouldn't.
That makes sense. I was misunderstanding your list as "a list of meditation-related things that are difficult to define", and got confused, because it is easy to define what the Qualia Research Institute is.
The school I found that seemed most serious (and whose stuff also worked for me) held the position that these things basically don't work for some people unless or until they have certain spontaneous experiences. No one knows what causes them. Some people report that they had the experiences on psychedelics, but no one knows if that's really causal or their propensity to take psychedelics was also caused by this upstream thing. I don't think there's much point in trying to force it, I don't think it works.
Note: Richard_Kennaway's quote differs from my post because I miscounted. My original post read "That brings the total to a minimum of 5, but it's probably at least 7+." I changed it to "That brings the total to a minimum of 4, but it's probably at least 6+." That's because the woman at Less Online who merely had Stream Entry doesn't yet count as "thoroughly-awakened".
oh ok you said "has obvious adhd" like you're inferring it from a few minutes observation of her behavior, not that she told you she has adhd. in general no you can't get an accurate diagnosis by observing someone, you need to differential diagnosis hypomania, hyperthyroidism, autism, substance abuse, caffeine, sleep deprivation, or just enjoying her hobby, plus establish whatever behavior is adhdlike happens across a variety of domains going back some time.
According to Nick Cammarata, who rubs shoulders with mystics and billionaires, arahants are as rare as billionaires.
This surprised me, because there are 2+[1] thoroughly-awakened people in my social circle. And that's just in meatspace. Online, I've interacted with a couple others. Plus I met someone with Stream Entry at Less Online last year. That brings the total to a minimum of 4, but it's probably at least 6+.
Meanwhile, I know 0 billionaires.
The explanation for this is obvious; billionaires cluster, as do mystics. If I were a billionaire, then it would be strange for me to not have rubbed shoulders with at least a 6+ other billionaires.
But there's a big difference between billionaires and arahants; it's easy to prove you're a billionaire; just throw a party on your private yacht. It's much harder to prove you're an arahant. In this way, billionaire-status is extremely legible whereas arahant-status is just as extremely illegible.
The arahant I admire the most is not famous and has no public writings on the Internet. Zuiko looks like any other little old lady. She likes talking about her cat. She sometimes teaches basic classes on Buddhism, which I find boring and which always run late.
Zuiko has no students and no disciples. While people sometimes attend Zuiko's classes, they're not really "her" classes. Zuiko is just the person who volunteered to teach that day. Curious people come because there is "a class on Zen", not "Zuiko's class on Zen". The other teacher (who I do not consider[2] an arahant) is more charismatic. People do come to see him specifically.
Imagine if Thích Nhất Hạnh or the Dalai Lama taught a class identical to Zuiko's. They'd fill a football stadium, because they're so famous.
<🔔 dingggggggggggg 🔔>
When I first got into meditation, the first meditation center I tried out was vajrayana (Tibetan). On the wall were three photos of living human beings who had supposedly attained enlightenment. The teacher explained that these photos were there to inspire us that it was possible to achieve enlightenment in this lifetime.
What? Are you kidding me? Imagine if you went to a powerlifting gym and there were pictures of Arnold Schwarzenegger, Dwayne Johnson and Chris Evans on the wall to prove that it was possible to build muscle by lifting weights. And the photos contained only their faces—no body pics. I bet all the men in that gym would be skinny (or gay). The best teachers don't point to cult leaders. They rarely cite ancient texts or say "from my experience". They just tell you to pay attention to RIGHT NOW in a hundred different ways.
<🔔 dingggggggggggg 🔔>
I like drawing. In the past month, I've been to two art groups.
One group is an anti-racist anti-sexist collective. They're a growing community with two physical locations. Membership costs $150/month, and members are expected to contribute labor to the community. There's a long[3] waiting list to become a member. They host regular events full of people who dress fashionably and talk fashionably. Their art sucks, by the way. It's ugly and boring, like the crap modern art museums are full of.
My drawing club meets at a coffee shop. The application process is "show up" and the membership requirements are "buy a drink to support the coffee shop". The table next to us plays Dungeons & Dragons. There's a woman with really obvious ADHD who tells entertaining stories while drawing her webcomic. The rest[4] of us are doing studies to get better at drawing. We like anime, webcomics, and classical technique.
Not counting myself.
He might be an arahant. I don't know if he is—and I've never asked. Ultimately, it doesn't matter.
The membership form asks for your race. I am curious if the waiting list is shorter for preferred races.
Except for the husband of the organizer who is writing an emulator for the Nintendo DS because the code he writes at work is boring because it doesn't have enough bugs. He's this guy and this guy.