Meditation And Jed Mckenna's Books And Staying Sane

[Jan Odvarko]

A few questions to meditators who have read one of Jed McKenna's books.

I've always viewed meditation and raising consciousness as a means to pursue enlightenment - it was THE way to go. Then Jed McKenna came with another bloody fork in the road, redefining my view of enlightenment to the core. However, as painful as it is, he makes sense.

I feel lost, confused, disintegrated. (Maybe a good starting point?) Having spent hundreds of hours in meditation, I don't feel like stopping and trashing all my efforts, but the fact is that after reading his book "Spiritual Enlightenment - The Damnedest Thing" I'm losing the drive to meditate.

Has anyone been in the same situation? How did you cope with it?

Would someone recommend me another book that takes a similar view? How about The Book of Not Knowing by Peter Ralston, would it be a good choice?

Thank you.

Edited February 14, 2016 by Jan Odvarko

[A way to Actualize]

If You are done with meditation. I would recommend 'whatever arises, love that' bt Matt Kahn. It is a new book.

[aurum]

Yes reading Damnedest has a tendency to do that to people. Honestly as much as I love McKenna, he isn't the final authority on enlightenment. Personally I enjoy meditation and so I do meditative hua tou along with spiritual autolysis because it feels "right" for now. That's really all you can do. Don't get caught in thinking it has to be any one way.

[Leo Gura]

Jed's views of meditation are too myopic and dogmatic. He is being dramatic to stress the point that self-inquiry is the more direct path to enlightenment than regular-old meditation, and this is generally true. However meditation is still a valid path to enlightenment -- many people have become enlightened through meditation -- and it also has MANY other positive benefits.

For fuck's sake, the Buddha got enlightened through meditation. Hundreds of yogi's have become enlightened through meditation. The entire Soto Zen tradition is grounded in meditation (zazen). To discount the validity of meditation is just ignorance. Jed speaks from only his own personal experiences with enlightenment. He has not done a broader survey of all the rich spiritual traditions in existence which DO IN FACT WORK, despite a lot of dogma and abuses.

Also, enlightenment is NOT the only issue. There are many others issues beyond enlightenment. Self-mastery is really the goal. And meditation is a very powerful tool for developing awareness and emotional intelligence.

I still meditate every day.

The only thing you should take away from Jed is that self-inquiry is a powerful method which is a good adjunct to meditation.

[Dhana Choko]

11 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

 

For fuck's sake, the Buddha got enlightened through meditation. 

How do you know Buddha got enlightened through meditation?

[Dhana Choko]

I will just clarify that my question is not to be taken as being obnoxious, but really, I ask this question with sincerity. How do we know WHAT caused someone to get enlightened?

If we look at all the people who got enlightened, we could probably draw many conclusions about their actions and say that this and that caused their enlightenment. We could say that they all meditated, we could say that they all ate, we could say that they all used the restroom and that we could say that they all had relationships etc. How can we say that the meditation was the thing that enlightened them? Maybe it was just something they did. The mind loves to draw conclusions about things and find "logical" solutions to things and say that this causes this. But in some traditions, this is seen only as a feature of the mind and not the Truth of everything. Kind of like energies and particles flowing in space and the mind desperately trying to draw conclusions on how this particle got here by the force of this and this energy. For the mind it is very hard to just let things be. 

This is very evident in psychology with ink tests etc. The mind automatically starts to find patterns, shapes and starts to think who thought what when they made this piece of paper and what these people might think of me etc. If a person is shown a picture, the person's mind is instantly starting to come up with stories connected to that picture. Mind just cannot let it be and observe what is. It is constantly drawing A to B. I think it is very important to understand this if we are wanting to understand the nature of the reality in truth. We need to be very aware of the limitations of the mind that we are trying to understand the world around us with. Due to the limitations of the mind, we draw conclusions that do not reflect the reality of Truth but the reality of our mind. Therefor I think it is very valid to ask, if we can know for sure that Buddha got enlightened BECAUSE of meditation.

[Dhana Choko]

I think the difference between some teachers is that they might believe that waking up itself is a choice. But it might not be. Since everything is of one source and then everyone will come to the same conclusion anyway and maybe at a determined point or even a determined way. I think that teachers like Matt Kahn do not believe that heart-centered teachers believe that a certain program or certain way of being leads to enlightenment - it is more like the enlightenment is given, but the road can be easy or hard.  

Also, to your interest, many people believe that Adyashanti is actually the same person behind McKenna...Many people say that they have so similar teachings that they must be the same person. So it is funny that you put them kind of on opposite sides of the coin so to speak.  

[Leo Gura]

12 hours ago, Dhana Choko said:

How do you know Buddha got enlightened through meditation?

Well... the Buddha's legacy is that is basically pioneered the process of enlightenment through mindfulness -- just sitting silently and observing reality exactly as it appears. This is the essence of meditation. How do you we know? Well we can't really know for sure if Buddha even existed, but if you study the Buddhist history and the Buddha's teachings then it should become quite obvious how things went down. The essence of Buddhism teachings is mindfulness practice, AKA meditation.

[Leo Gura]

4 hours ago, Pinocchio said:

How do you know they work.

Because you can study the esoteric core of every religious tradition, from Judaism to Christianity to Islam and you clearly see mystics describing the EXACT same phenomena of enlightenment, spirit, consciousness, no-self, God, Nothingness, and divine love.

The convergence is uncanny. Christian and Jewish mystics describe God as Nothingness, just like Buddhists do.

Old school prayer = contemplation = merging with God = Samadhi = enlightenment

[Leo Gura]

Be careful of falling into the trap of: my way to enlightenment is the ONLY way to enlightenment.

No!

There are dozens if not hundreds of totally different ways to reach enlightenment. The problem is that most people (even enlightenment ones) are too ignorant of the wide diversity of successful enlightenment teachers.

[A way to Actualize]

7 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

Be careful of falling into the trap of: my way to enlightenment is the ONLY way to enlightenment.

No!

There are dozens if not hundreds of totally different ways to reach enlightenment. The problem is that most people (even enlightenment ones) are too ignorant of the wide diversity of successful enlightenment teachers.

Have you ever tried the teaching on self-love for a few months? Really casual, and I was wondering what your experiences would be after doing it for a few months. 

I still meditate too, but the teaching of self-love expands the spiritual practice to every moment of the day.

I really admire your art btw. 

Edited February 15, 2016 by A way to Actualize

[Leo Gura]

@A way to Actualize I don't know what you mean by "teaching of self-love".

[A way to Actualize]

12 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

@A way to Actualize I don't know what you mean by "teaching of self-love".

 

It is a practice that never ends. On the way there is enlightenment. 

Edited February 15, 2016 by A way to Actualize

[Leo Gura]

11 minutes ago, mkieblesz said:

@Leo Gura you mentioned the process of enlightenment through mindfulness. But as Shinzen Young is describing and my teacher (I was on one 10 day retreat of Vipassana) that true progress is purification.

Therefore all of those different ways of enlightenment you speak of looks the same to me - purification triggered by different causes. Is this something you considered or have different perspective on? Or am I just deluded here?

Sure, you could look at all the schools and all the different teachings as ultimately being one. That's just a matter of how zoomed-out of a perspective you want to take.

Practically speaking, there are a lot of differences though between schools. Some schools are far more effective than others and the actual techniques will feel very different to you when you're doing them.

It also all depends on your goals. Some people want purification. Others only want truth. Others only want to see God. Others want all the above. Others want special healing powers and psychic abilities. And others want something else entirely.

[Leo Gura]

@A way to Actualize Haven't watched that one. But Matt's teachings appear like a great addition to cut-and-dried self-inquiry, sure.

[A way to Actualize]

Just now, Leo Gura said:

@A way to Actualize Haven't watched that one. But it appears like a good addition to cut-and-dried self-inquiry, sure.

definitely for the people who are serious about enlightenment.

Succes on your path!

[Avi]

On 2/14/2016 at 1:19 AM, Jan Odvarko said:

Would someone recommend me another book that takes a similar view? How about The Book of Not Knowing by Peter Ralston, would it be a good choice?

 

The Book of Not Knowing, which I'm in the middle of right now is one of the best books I have every read. Every page so far is like staring into your soul. 

[Leo Gura]

@Pinocchio Shinzen Young is not enlightened? Hehe... why would you think that?

His understanding of enlightenment is very deep. I've seen the man in action. I've spoken with him for hours. If he doesn't understand enlightenment, I don't know who does. He is definitely enlightened.

He doesn't directly hit you over the head with enlightenment theory because his style is to teach the technique of mindfulness. That's actually a sign of a very good spiritual teacher: one who teaches techniques rather than theory.

[Leo Gura]

@Pinocchio You are mistaken. You should listen to him more carefully and to more of his material. He talks about many things, but he talks about no-self a lot and he's certainly realized it himself many times over. His descriptions of the activity of somethingness arising out of Nothingness are profound and clearly come from direct experience.

He's actually gone far deeper, I would guess, than most other enlightened folk like Jed. Because 40 years of mindfulness practice will develop in you a resolving power that no ordinary enlightened person will have. Not only will you realize no-self, but you will actually go much deeper, seeing how form arises out of Nothingness on a micro, moment-by-moment level.

[Leo Gura]

@Pinocchio I have not read his theory of everything.

BTW, Shinzen Young did not get enlightened through meditation, but through 4 years of self-inquiry. I asked him about it personally.

The distinction between meditation and self-inquiry is rather bogus. The two tend to blend together after a while.

In Zen, a popular Koan is, "Who am I?" << Which is essentially self-inquiry.