Into the Stream ~ A Study Guide on the First Stage of Awakening

[steve]

12 hours ago, stirling said:

Blanche's teachings are greatly under utilized and poorly served by the single book extant.

 

Here is a bit more of Blanche's wisdom in articles from Lion's Roar magazine.

Interesting for me, her responses can be directly compared and contrasted to those of my own root teacher Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche in several of these brief and valuable articles. 

 

https://www.lionsroar.com/author/blanche-hartman/

[Mark Foote]

36 minutes ago, steve said:

 

Here is a bit more of Blanche's wisdom in articles from Lion's Roar magazine.

Interesting for me, her responses can be directly compared and contrasted to those of my own root teacher Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche in several of these brief and valuable articles. 

 

https://www.lionsroar.com/author/blanche-hartman/

 

 

From the first article on the page above, by Blanche:

Katagiri Dainin Roshi said, “We sit to settle the self on the self and let the flower of our life force bloom.”

 

Gotta love it!

[Mark Foote]

49 minutes ago, stirling said:

 

This understanding, and being able to see moment to moment the truth of this understanding ARE enlightenment. It is completely possible to realize this in any moment, and see that it is how things are moment to moment. 

 

 

Gautama's enlightenment, as I understand it, was his insight into conditional genesis:  ignorance begets the (volitive) activities, begets consciousness, begets (volitive) feeling, down to "this entire mass of suffering", which he also described as grasping after self in the five groups.

 

That insight sprang out of his attainment of the cessation of (habit or volition) in feeling and perception, the final state of concentration.

 

Fortunately, Gautama described his way of living as the four arisings of mindfulness in "the intent concentration on in-breathing and out-breathing" (in the chapter on in-breathing and out-breathing in Samyutta Nikaya vol V).  That would be thought applied and sustained in the four arisings of mindfulness.   "A thing perfect in itself, and a pleasant way of living besides"--that was his description.

 

Why would he do that, recommend to his followers that they practice a way of living that was mostly thought applied and sustained?

Because scores of them a day committed suicide, after following his recommendation to meditate on the unlovely aspects of the body, in order to achieve enlightenment (same chapter).

 

I think the moral of the suicides is that aiming at enlightenment can be counterproductive.  All that's really necessary is some experience with the cessation of volition in action, because "One trains oneself , thinking: ‘I will breathe in… breathe out beholding beholding stopping" was the fifteenth element of Gautama's way of living (I. B. Horner's translation, "cessation" in F. L. Woodward's translation).

Gautama described by analogy the feeling of each of the first four concentrations.  Yes, "laying hold of one-pointedness of mind" was synonymous with concentration, and yes, thought is applied and sustained in the four fields in the first concentration, but there is, according to Gautama, also a particular feeling associated with the first concentration:

 

… just as a handy bathman or attendant might strew bath-powder in some copper basin and, gradually sprinkling water, knead it together so that the bath-ball gathered up the moisture, became enveloped in moisture and saturated both in and out, but did not ooze moisture; even so, (a person) steeps, drenches, fills, and suffuses this body with zest and ease, born of solitude, so that there is not one particle of the body that is not pervaded by this lone-born zest and ease.

 

(AN III 25-28, Pali Text Society Vol III p 18-19)

 

My description would be that the breath places attention in space, and a presence of mind allows a "laying hold" of that "one-pointed" sensation of attention at a particular, if shifting, place.

Sometimes the sensation is in the hara.  Myself, I tend to experience the feelings Gautama described for the first four concentrations in any order, all at once, hardly at all.  If I take in sensation in the whole body, so that the "one-pointedness of mind" has the whole body to move in, the "one-pointedness of mind" acts in the movement of breath, and "I" do not. 

That is how I accept Gautama's advice, and pursue what he described as "a pleasant way of living", instead of enlightenment.  What a beautiful description Blanche Hartman quoted:
 

Katagiri Dainin Roshi said, “We sit to settle the self on the self and let the flower of our life force bloom.

 

 

[Mark Foote]

Also from that Blanche Hartman article:
 

The Zen teacher Kobun Chino Roshi, who came here from Japan as a young monk to help Suzuki Roshi start the monastery at Tassajara, once said, “You don’t use the precepts for accomplishing your own personality, or fulfilling your dream of your highest image. You don’t use the precepts that way. The precepts are the reflected light-world of one precept, which is Buddha’s mind itself, which is the presence of Buddha. Zazen is the first formulation of the accomplishing of Buddha existing...

[Maddie]

Is anyone familiar with the different methods that the Buddha mentioned for obtaining enlightenment? Like I think you said one way people do it is through faith and another way is through mindfulness and another way is to concentration but does anybody know what I'm talking about or what the sutta is?

[Mark Foote]

30 minutes ago, Maddie said:

 

Is anyone familiar with the different methods that the Buddha mentioned for obtaining enlightenment? Like I think you said one way people do it is through faith and another way is through mindfulness and another way is to concentration but does anybody know what I'm talking about or what the sutta is?

 

 

Could you be thinking of the seven factors of enlightenment?  

Here's the list, from "Gilana Sutta: Ill (ill)", as translated by Piyadassi Thera (on accesstoinsight.org):

 

 

Thus I heard: At one time the Buddha was living at Rajagaha, at Veluvana, in the squirrel's feeding-ground. At that time the Venerable Maha Kassapa, who was living in Pipphali Cave, was sick, stricken with a severe illness. Then the Buddha, rising from his solitude at eventide, visited the Venerable Maha Kassapa, took his seat, and spoke to the Venerable Maha Kassapa in this wise:

 

"Well, Kassapa, how is it with you? Are you bearing up; are you enduring? Do your pains lessen or increase? Are there signs of your pains lessening and not increasing?"

 

"No, Lord, I am not bearing up, I am not enduring. The pain is very great. There is a sign not of the pains lessening but of their increasing."

 

"Kassapa, these seven factors of enlightenment are well expounded by me, cultivated and much developed by me, and when cultivated and much developed, they conduce to full realization, perfect wisdom, to Nibbana. What are the seven?

 

"Mindfulness. This, O Kassapa, is well expounded by me, cultivated and much developed by me, and when cultivated and much developed, it conduces to full realization, perfect wisdom, to Nibbana.

 

"Investigation of the dhamma...

 

"Energy...

 

"Rapture...

 

"Calm...

 

"Concentration...

 

"Equanimity, O Kassapa, is well expounded by me...

 

"These seven factors of enlightenment, verily, Kassapa, are well expounded by me, cultivated and much developed by me, and when cultivated and much developed they conduce to full realization, perfect wisdom, to Nibbana."

 

"Verily, Blessed One, they are factors of enlightenment! Verily, O Welcome One, they are factors of enlightenment!" uttered Maha Kassapa. Thus spoke the Buddha, and the Venerable Maha Kassapa, rejoicing, welcomed the utterances of the Worthy One. And the Venerable Maha Kassapa rose from that illness. There and then that ailment of the Venerable Maha Kassapa vanished.

 

(SN 46.14  PTS: S v 79)

[Maddie]

26 minutes ago, Mark Foote said:

 

Could you be thinking of the seven factors of enlightenment?  

Here's the list, from "Gilana Sutta: Ill (ill)", as translated by Piyadassi Thera (on accesstoinsight.org):

 

 

Thus I heard: At one time the Buddha was living at Rajagaha, at Veluvana, in the squirrel's feeding-ground. At that time the Venerable Maha Kassapa, who was living in Pipphali Cave, was sick, stricken with a severe illness. Then the Buddha, rising from his solitude at eventide, visited the Venerable Maha Kassapa, took his seat, and spoke to the Venerable Maha Kassapa in this wise:

 

"Well, Kassapa, how is it with you? Are you bearing up; are you enduring? Do your pains lessen or increase? Are there signs of your pains lessening and not increasing?"

 

"No, Lord, I am not bearing up, I am not enduring. The pain is very great. There is a sign not of the pains lessening but of their increasing."

 

"Kassapa, these seven factors of enlightenment are well expounded by me, cultivated and much developed by me, and when cultivated and much developed, they conduce to full realization, perfect wisdom, to Nibbana. What are the seven?

 

"Mindfulness. This, O Kassapa, is well expounded by me, cultivated and much developed by me, and when cultivated and much developed, it conduces to full realization, perfect wisdom, to Nibbana.

 

"Investigation of the dhamma...

 

"Energy...

 

"Rapture...

 

"Calm...

 

"Concentration...

 

"Equanimity, O Kassapa, is well expounded by me...

 

"These seven factors of enlightenment, verily, Kassapa, are well expounded by me, cultivated and much developed by me, and when cultivated and much developed they conduce to full realization, perfect wisdom, to Nibbana."

 

"Verily, Blessed One, they are factors of enlightenment! Verily, O Welcome One, they are factors of enlightenment!" uttered Maha Kassapa. Thus spoke the Buddha, and the Venerable Maha Kassapa, rejoicing, welcomed the utterances of the Worthy One. And the Venerable Maha Kassapa rose from that illness. There and then that ailment of the Venerable Maha Kassapa vanished.

 

(SN 46.14  PTS: S v 79)

 

No it's not that that one's too obvious this one's more obscure.

It was different ways to become enlightened.

[Lairg]

At the risk of stating the obvious:  enlightenment occurs when the spiritual Light can flow through the human personality without significant constraint.  This is a state of inner planes physics.

 

The flow requires proper/clean physical, emotional and mental bodies.

 

There are various fast and slow means for clearing those bodies.  

 

Right relationship is the easiest means in this solar system.

 

Repeated rebirth is the fall-back process

 

Edited March 4, 2023 by Lairg

[Maddie]

50 minutes ago, Lairg said:

At the risk of stating the obvious:  enlightenment occurs when the spiritual Light can flow through the human personality without significant constraint.  This is a state of inner planes physics.

 

The flow requires proper/clean physical, emotional and mental bodies.

 

There are various fast and slow means for clearing those bodies.  

 

Right relationship is the easiest means in this solar system.

 

Repeated rebirth is the fall-back process

 

 

Except that's not the Buddha's definition of enlightenment at all. 

[Mark Foote]

3 hours ago, Maddie said:

 

No it's not that that one's too obvious this one's more obscure.

It was different ways to become enlightened.

 

I'll be interested to hear, if you come up with it, although I tend to disregard anything from the fifth Nikaya.  That one is of later composition.

[Mark Foote]

1 hour ago, Maddie said:

Lairg said:  "At the risk of stating the obvious:  enlightenment occurs when the spiritual Light can flow through the human personality without significant constraint.  This is a state of inner planes physics."
 

Maddie responded:  "Except that's not the Buddha's definition of enlightenment at all." 

 

 

The human part of the flow-through is the observation of the cessation of volition, first in speech, then in deed, and finally in thought.

That would be my take.  The cessation of volition in thought ("feeling and perceiving") catalyzed Gautama's enlightenment, but the enlightenment itself was the four truths about suffering.

[Maddie]

16 minutes ago, Mark Foote said:

I'll be interested to hear, if you come up with it, although I tend to disregard anything from the fifth Nikaya.  That one is of later composition.

 

Yeah I'm not sure which one it's from but I heard a monk speaking of it during a talk but I really wish I had a source.

 

I also don't give the fifth one as much weight for the same reason.

Edited March 5, 2023 by Maddie

[Maddie]

Here's a question about stream entry. Let's say one became a streamer in a past life. How would they know it in this life?

[stirling]

8 hours ago, steve said:

Here is a bit more of Blanche's wisdom in articles from Lion's Roar magazine.

Interesting for me, her responses can be directly compared and contrasted to those of my own root teacher Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche in several of these brief and valuable articles. 

 

https://www.lionsroar.com/author/blanche-hartman/

 

The back of Blanche's rakusu:

 

 

It says: "Finished".

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rakusu

[stirling]

6 hours ago, Mark Foote said:

Gautama's enlightenment, as I understand it, was his insight into conditional genesis:  ignorance begets the (volitive) activities, begets consciousness, begets (volitive) feeling, down to "this entire mass of suffering", which he also described as grasping after self in the five groups.

 

The three doors are: Emptiness, Signlessness, and Aimlessness.

 

https://www.lionsroar.com/the-doors-of-liberation-may-2014/

 

Gautama's door may have been one or another, but that doesn't mean it will be YOUR door.

 

There is no one way into to enlightenment, there are countless.... or maybe 84,000. 

 

https://www.dhammawiki.com/index.php/84,000_Dhamma_doors

 

Personally, I am convinced dharma doors are countless.

 

[stirling]

4 hours ago, Lairg said:

At the risk of stating the obvious:  enlightenment occurs when the spiritual Light can flow through the human personality without significant constraint.  This is a state of inner planes physics.

 

The flow requires proper/clean physical, emotional and mental bodies.

 

There are various fast and slow means for clearing those bodies.  

 

Right relationship is the easiest means in this solar system.

 

Repeated rebirth is the fall-back process

 

That isn't exactly obvious to me, but does resemble some terminology I would agree with - that working to drop beliefs and ideas that obscure the underlying reality of how things are makes enlightenment more of a possibility. The ideal would be to drop ALL beliefs or tightly held ideas, but that is a tall order in this world. Would you agree?

[Mark Foote]

27 minutes ago, stirling said:

 

The three doors are: Emptiness, Signlessness, and Aimlessness.

 

https://www.lionsroar.com/the-doors-of-liberation-may-2014/

 

Gautama's door may have been one or another, but that doesn't mean it will be YOUR door.

 

There is no one way into to enlightenment, there are countless.... or maybe 84,000. 

 

https://www.dhammawiki.com/index.php/84,000_Dhamma_doors

 

Personally, I am convinced dharma doors are countless.

 

 

Looked at the one by Thay, and while I can't disagree with the fundamentals, I have always found medicine in zazen.  The spoonful of sugar, is the difficult (and changing) thing to describe!

Meditation manuals are endless--I vow to write the meditation manual to end all meditation manuals! 

I have nothing but warm memories of Blanche, and an appreciation for her straightforward and self-effacing Zen.  I met her a few times over the years-- I remember her recollecting Kobun at one of the Kobun memorials at Jikoji, and I spoke to her at S.F. Zen Center after a lecture by Carl Bielefeldt.

Free-style rock 'n roll tonight, dance being one of those 84,000 doors, I guess.

[steve]

1 hour ago, stirling said:

Personally, I am convinced dharma doors are countless.

 

There are as many dharma doors as there are ways a sentient being can be obstructed. 

[stirling]

2 hours ago, Mark Foote said:

Looked at the one by Thay, and while I can't disagree with the fundamentals, I have always found medicine in zazen.  The spoonful of sugar, is the difficult (and changing) thing to describe!

Meditation manuals are endless--I vow to write the meditation manual to end all meditation manuals! 

I have nothing but warm memories of Blanche, and an appreciation for her straightforward and self-effacing Zen.  I met her a few times over the years-- I remember her recollecting Kobun at one of the Kobun memorials at Jikoji, and I spoke to her at S.F. Zen Center after a lecture by Carl Bielefeldt.

Free-style rock 'n roll tonight, dance being one of those 84,000 doors, I guess.

 

You might be more impressed then with the teachings of a Tibetan master - this is good stuff, IMHO:

 

https://www.lotsawahouse.org/tibetan-masters/rongton/excellent-path-great-vehicle

 

...or, to bring it full circle and keep it Zen, how about a note from Mel Weitsman, teacher to both Blanche, dharma "godfather" to MY late teacher,  AND teacher to the amazing Norman Fischer:

 

https://berkeleyzencenter.org/dharma-talk/sojun-mel-weitsman-three-doors-of-liberation/

 

-

 

I agree - practices and conceptualizations are endless, I vow to forsake them! What are rafts for, when no-one listens anymore?

 

-

 

Kobun headed Jikoji where my teacher was a long time resident, and a couple of my personal teachers also resided and ran sesshin - Doug Jacobs, and Ian Forsberg. Jikoji is a magical place, and the dharma still flows strong there, whoever might be in charge.

 

I'm not tired. It's still early! Let's listen to The Clash and slam some dharma doors! Only 83,999 to go!

Edited March 5, 2023 by stirling

[stirling]

11 hours ago, steve said:

Here is a bit more of Blanche's wisdom in articles from Lion's Roar magazine.

Interesting for me, her responses can be directly compared and contrasted to those of my own root teacher Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche in several of these brief and valuable articles. 

 

https://www.lionsroar.com/author/blanche-hartman/

 

After 25 years in Nyingma, it honestly wasn't a great leap to come to Soto. Zen is VERY much like Dzogchen. Both developed alongside Taoism and Chan, IMHO, and are profoundly influenced as a result. 

[Lairg]

8 hours ago, Mark Foote said:

The human part of the flow-through is the observation of the cessation of volition, first in speech, then in deed, and finally in thought.

 

It is not that the enlightened human has no volition.  It is that the enlightened human has no personal volition.

 

The personality is transformed so the Light and Intent from on-high can be acted upon by the enlightened human.

 

The son/daughter of God is thus delegated some of the family business - and is delegated more authority when they demonstrate they can use effectively the spiritual authority given to them initially

 

 

[Maddie]

3 hours ago, Lairg said:

 

It is not that the enlightened human has no volition.  It is that the enlightened human has no personal volition.

 

The personality is transformed so the Light and Intent from on-high can be acted upon by the enlightened human.

 

The son/daughter of God is thus delegated some of the family business - and is delegated more authority when they demonstrate they can use effectively the spiritual authority given to them initially

 

 

 

So who or what is this on high?

[steve]

10 hours ago, stirling said:

Zen is VERY much like Dzogchen.

 

Many scholars and purists would take issue with this and point out the differences. I'm more interested in the similarities as I find it supportive and instructive, as a practitioner, to see the common thread that runs through the core of different traditions; something that really comes alive when you have a certain degree of realization. That said I’ve never received any instruction in Zen or Chan other than from reading some scripture and poetry.

[C T]

There's talk the dzogzen school is on the lookout for a gatekeeper. 

[Lairg]

7 hours ago, Maddie said:

 

So who or what is this on high?

 

On High has various meanings depending upon one's religion or metaphysical science.

 

In some traditions the gods are very tall (giants/titans) with the oldest god being the tallest - the Most High.  In many societies it is statistically common to pay higher salaries to taller humans - since they are looked up to.   And royalty are often referred to as "your highness".

 

The alien gods traveled in craft such as the vimana and thus could see everything from above - the all-seeing eye.

 

In metaphysical science there are more subtle planes of Existence: physical, emotional, mental, buddhic, atmic, etc.   The more subtle planes have higher frequencies so that energies condensed from higher planes come from On High.

 

There are more possible meanings involving parallel timepaths