i mean, take the various dhyana: the Buddhists now have 8 of them. But there were tons more of them, they are written of, and mostly we don't know what they were. Or when Chan Mahayanna guys wrote about Hinayana stuff they were very clear their enlightments were different.
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Look, I'm a Jhana essentialist. I have experienced states that, to me and to more accomplished practitioners, fits with the formal descriptions of the Jhanas.
I'm not saying the stuff doesn't work. I am making a critique of the philosophy and the approach, not the craft.
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perhaps, then I misunderstood, or chose to grind my own axe. I'm just not sure that suffering can't be gotten rid of, effectively, for example, so I'm not sure it's a ridiculous philosophy. (Dukkha, otoh, well, perhaps not. But if you don't care, that's very close.)
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Yeah, I came at that particular problem from my own cyclothymic baseline.
I have periods where suffering is an overwhelming constant and I wish only for its end, and periods where it feels hardly relevant at all.
Over time, that both damages and immunizes you.
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There may be stable states which avoid it. The core Mahayana criticism of Theravada is that Arhat nirvana is not a stable state. Eventually you will fall out of it. That is unacceptable to them. Arhat is not a stable state, whereas Buddha level is. (Again, no idea if true.)
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So, things I agree with:
- Only an accomplished practitioner can say what something is really like, experientially.
Things I disagree with:
- Accomplished practitioners are qualified to deal in absolutes.
How do they know what does or doesn't end? I don't see how they could.
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They can't know it eternally. They can know it for years, and if you believe in spiritual bodies (and if you don't most of cultivation Buddhism and Hinduism is bullshit to you), then you can speak for centuries and millenia at the least.
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I question that premise.
I certainly believe in elite-level athleticism, but most elite athletes are strongly deluded about their own skills. It's seemingly of benefit to their practice.
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In my youth I was a very very good runner. The difference between the actual elites and the very good is heartbreakingly large. I could multiple lap good non runners. The world level guy could lap me. Most people never get to a level where they can even understand the gap.
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Yeah, exactly. But I am fairly confident the vast majority of those guys thought they could be THE best, even if they never could be.
Otherwise, the psychological forces you're describing would annihilate their will to compete.
I think myth ideation may be a similar bottleneck.
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Put differently: it may even be absolutely necessary, if you wish to proceed, to be able to accept those stories that come up.
Doesn't mean those stories are true, just that some level of comfort with them is a necessary qualification for advancement.