Ep136: Meeting of the Dharmas - Daniel Ingram & Delson Armstrong

In this episode, I host a dialogue between Daniel Ingram and Delson Armstrong. Daniel Ingram is an independent Buddhist writer, author of Mastering the Core Teachings of the Buddha, and co-founder of the Emergent Phenomenology Research Consortium. Delson Armstrong is a spiritual teacher, author of A Mind Without Craving, and the star student of Bhante Vimalaramsi. Daniel and Delson discuss the similarities and differences between their doctrinal positions and personal experiences of the four-path model of Buddhist enlightenment, from stream entry to arahantship. In this collegial yet rigorous dialogue, Daniel and Delson engage in detailed debate on the differences in their positions and draw on personal experience, scriptural examples, and questions of scientific verification. They also discuss the effect of enlightenment on psychopathy and other personality disorders.

Reflect on which meditation methods best fit different personality types, and conduct in-depth analysis on the phenomena of Nirodha Samapati. So without further ado, Daniel Ingram and Delson Armstrong. Daniel Ingram and Delson Armstrong, welcome to the podcast. Delightful to be here. Thank you. Great to be here. Thank you. Well, I'm very delighted to have both of you here for a dialogue.

And I found, I think as many of our listeners and viewers will have noticed, that both of you are very open, candid, but also rigorous, and so I think this combination is really excellent. I know both of you also have an interest in science and also in Dharma that's pragmatic and that works. But there are some important differences, I think, in your presentations of the path, etc., so we will dive into those here. So first of all, let's get to the heart of it. I think perhaps I could start by asking each of you to talk about the four path model. In specific, what qualifies a stream enterer, a once returner, a never returner and an arahant? Perhaps reflecting on your own experience of attaining each of those paths, what changed for you?

And what do you consider to be, if you like, your definitions or your qualifications for those sorts of path attainments? And perhaps we could start with Daniel. Well, I'd like to take this in relatively small pieces, because if I'm not careful, I have a tendency to give long monologues, and I would like to do the opposite of that. So I would like to take simple criteria and maybe have a discussion about each one, rather than me sort of list some long thing that's a tremendous amount to remember, and then trying to have some other thing that's not really a conversation. So maybe I start with the first and most interesting thing to me that I noticed, that was the most strikingly different.

On stream entry, or what I think of as stream entry, and again, people disagree about these maps and models and things, so there's controversy. That's the point of this: suddenly, whereas the stages of insight, which had been challenging to attain and to navigate through, took days or weeks, or sometimes even months, to unfold in various contexts, they just moved through so quickly. They were just rolling through naturally. I would try to take a nap and they were just rolling through, pulling towards fruition, and then that would be happening. So what used to be a whole project of going on retreat, powering up and going through all the stuff, suddenly was just there on tap. That fluidity of insight stages, the buzziness of the arising and passing away and its rapturous bliss, and then body dissolving, and then what had previously been challenging knowledges of suffering and then flexing out to equanimity, was just like an easy thing to have roll through.

And it was not nearly that big a deal, particularly after the first run or two through it. And this was such a massive upgrade that these states of mind, which had previously been captivating, or it had a lot of weight and inertia to them, just kind of rolled through like clouds in the sky. And it was like, this is much better, and suddenly I could attain to formless realms, which I couldn't attain to before, jhanas at all I was terrible with. And suddenly I could literally just start inclining the mind that way, and I suddenly had all this shamatha capability, which I was totally surprised by. I wasn't expecting that. Not everybody gets that, but suddenly I could just do it, and I've been able to do it since. It was this, whereas before it was easy for me to dissolve reality into irritating particles but very, very challenging to get into more jhanic states. And so that's the first thing I'm going to talk about, regardless of other criteria. What are your thoughts on that?

yeah so for me my experience had been uh basically starting off with the jhanas so in other words uh we started off with uh using loving kindness or metta as an object of meditation and then getting into the jhanas based on the model that's used in uh majumanikaya 111 on upada sutta and in that there is the uh description of sariputta's whole journey from the first jhana all the way to cessation and perception healing consciousness so for me uh i see it as the eradication of the first three fetters so the way i understand that is possibly a little different than how people might traditionally understand it that is to say we talk about sakaya diti which is the belief in a self or belief in a or the false belief in a personal self let's say or misperceived belief in a personal self and then the doubt in the path and the

belief in rites and rituals or clinging to rites and rituals with the belief that they can lead one to the end of suffering in nirvana and my experience was uh different in the sense that i went through the first four jhanas i went through the arupa jhanas and i experienced the insight that was with them in regards to the arising and passing away of consciousness the understanding of seeing the three characteristics of existence by doing so and then experiencing the subtler states in neither perception and non-perception and finally experiencing the cessation of perception feeling and consciousness so when the mind let's say booted back up it was an interesting experience because there was this insight into seeing the links of dependent origination and i remember the state being so profound in the sense of it was like a you know weight was lifted off my shoulders and for me the experience was so profound that everything that you see around you has

a different level of sharpness to it a different level of clarity a different level of brightness to it and this lasted for at least a day or so uh in terms of that joy that relief that was experienced so the the experience is uh it's it's both the experience of the insight into how this process works in terms of how the mind creates the sense of self how the mind creates this reality that is projected on with all of the different ideas and notions and concepts and for that time being right after that experience of cessation the post cessation experience as i call it there is just this complete and utter letting go and such sharp mindfulness that you're able to see it and then the experience is just kind of rooted in your mind it's irreversible at that point in time yeah so yeah very interesting um i've definitely given a choice of the two ways would have preferred your way just to be clear

uh it sounds like a lot more fun um uh mine i think was relatively fast but definitely challenging and not very pleasant most the time and uh so yeah given a choice of the two ways i would take yours so um and uh the other thing is the afterglow i found the afterglow of stream entry also very impressive my mind was sharp beyond reason it was ridiculous it was it was actually there's some days i think like that's the most power or the the experience at the time was it felt like some of the most power my mind ever had um which is a strange thing to say and i think it was a mix of the newness and the freshness of it it was such a quantum leap in terms of the capabilities to see precisely so many things to see the subtleties of how the sense of identity restarted like the incredible like microscopic detail was amazing to watch how the thing dissolved to watch how it collapsed some of my most pristine memories of three doors entrances into fruition were from that period, actually, because they were so extraordinarily vivid.

And so I would agree, there was, for me, a deep sense of incredible, yeah, the weight lifting off the shoulders also. I was like, yes, definitely. And it was just so much better. Like, this clearly felt like going home. It felt like what I was looking for, which is a funny thing for disappearing would be going home, but that's that was true and it felt like the the thing the mind had most wanted to do like it had been looking all over the place for all these other things that wanted to do no that's what it wanted to do and so yeah i would just agree with a lot of that the dependent origination point is a really interesting one and i've thought a lot about dependent origination my insights into it then were moderately strong i wouldn't say that i saw the whole thing in the same way that i did later because there were sort of levels to it and aspects of it that it took a while to kind of permeate through.

So I would say that I definitely gained an appreciation of the 12 links, particularly of how ignorance created the sense of volitional formation. So we can talk about these technical terms, but the sense that it's because we, you know, as a technical practitioner, it was suddenly very easy for me to see, wait, the stream of intentions is arising causally. That's not a doer. And the stream of mental impressions is arising causally, these little mental echoes that occur very rapidly after sensations. Those are not a true knower.

Those are just causal phenomena. And so, yes, the ability to see that was suddenly off the charts. But the full implications of it, like the full deeper layers of mind understanding of it, was definitely not complete yet so but it would be the same theme just that more and more subtle layers of mind that would start showing themselves you know in later months and years and so that was what it was like for me what are your thoughts

Yeah, I would agree with that, and I would say one of the things I noticed was that before starting this practice, if I went into the suttas and started reading them, it was like a secret code that you can't decipher. There are so many interesting technical terms and things about jhanas, and the arising and passing away of this, and the dissolution of that, and cessation of that, and you really don't understand what's going on until you actually experience it for yourself. So I would say that even if a person were to get to the states of the jhanas and even the arupa levels, and they go back and read the suttas again, they still have some clear understanding, maybe not the full understanding of what's being said by the Buddha or the other teachers within it. The other thing I would note is that the post-cessation experience also brought about this experience of real energy.

It was difficult to go to sleep. It was buzzing, buzzing energy, and everything just felt like you were floating around, and everything was just so serene, so tranquil. Now, in the coming weeks and months, and afterwards, when you go back and read the suttas and you look at what he's talking about in terms of what happens just before the experience of cessation, what happens when you see the impermanence, what happens when you see the dukkha, what happens when you see the anatta, the experience which leads invariably towards the experience of cessation, now you have actually followed the map. You have actually followed the road, so when you look back now, you can recognize and say, oh, I get what he's saying here. It immediately unlocked that secret code, so now you know exactly what he's talking about. And when it comes to the links of dependent origination, yeah, this is something that seems to be there when there's some kind of experience that you have with the unconditioned, where after that there's just

there's a seeing of something. It's not necessarily a visual seeing, but it's just a knowledge and vision of something that's there, which is really the understanding of how this whole process works, in terms of reality being created for the mind, or the mind creating that reality. You touched upon volitional formations and ignorance, and later on the understanding of that came about, where you see actually even interconnections with regards to contact, feeling, perception and intention, and then you see how your intentions create the formations for the next cycling, and those formations then influence the next set of choices and the next set of intentions. And in all that you see that there is no doer here, there's no self going on here. It's just a process of causes and conditions. But, like you said, it's something that happens where you start perceiving it with that new insight, with that new perspective, and everything just falls into place and it makes more and more sense.

And obviously, as you get deeper and you attain more, you have an even clearer understanding of how this whole process works. Yeah. And with regard to the first three defilements, as they're typically listed, the rites and rituals one is interesting, and I just want to say a little bit about this, because it was obviously a pushback against Brahmanism at the time. So it's got a mix of elements in it, theoretical, perceptual, technical, political, so that the notion that one might attain salvation purely through rites and rituals, rather than clear perception of the true nature of sensate phenomena?

But when I actually think back about this, just to give a little bit of credence to the other side, and to think about what I call the descriptive fallacy: everybody who has attained stream entry, if you ask them whether rites and rituals do not lead to awakening, some might hesitate. And I think the reasons for this are that what I was doing when I attained stream entry was highly ritualistic. I was in a monastery with statues, doing a very formal, rigorous, technical, ritualized practice with timing, and we were bound. There was all this stuff to it. While the perception itself was just the perception of the truth of things, the ritual context lent a lot of faith, of stability, of structure, of galvanizing, of effort, of social cohesion.

There's a lot that was going on that the ritual components added to. So, just to be fair about this one and not want to oversell the elimination of the problem, I still appreciated the ritualistic context in which this occurred. It's hard to purely be certain I can utterly separate out all of the causalities for me, in terms of what led to the correct balance of factors that made the mind so clear. And I think part of the ritualistic nature of it was contributory. It's hard to imagine the same thing happening on some busy street in Delhi or wherever. Maybe people attain stream entry in all kinds of interesting contexts. But just to push back on that one, and in terms of the other one, personality belief?

The thing is, I think, I've known people who have attained this in various contexts that weren't as technical or theoretically grounded in Buddhist philosophy or the doctrines of no self in the same kind of way. Functionally, operationally, a lot of people will still be very much seemingly operating from a sense of a personality, a self. So this one can also get a little bit overblown, I think, and one has to be careful with it. And the interesting thing is, the sense of doubt is another one I want to push back on, because I've known a few people who I think attained stream entry, and they weren't 100% certain.

This is the funny thing. I've known a few of these people, and this is even mentioned. You can find other mentions of this in texts and things. They were like, well, this is really cool, but they were expecting something more. It didn't quite fit all their expectations based on whatever they had read, and they had some concerns.

So each of those, depending on the context and the person's training and other circumstances around it, might not perform exactly in the sort of black-and-white way that some people sometimes think they might. I just wanted to put that out there to say this can be confusing, and there are other things that can enter the differential. Like when you mentioned seeing, not sleeping for days and seeing very fine-grained phenomena, the stage of the udayabbaya nana is also a classic one for that, and it can also radically upgrade one's understanding of the teachings. Technically, according to some old commentary or something, I think the minimum criteria for teaching would actually be having crossed the udayabbaya nana, because then you would have directly seen impermanence, no self and suffering in some kind of direct way, even if it didn't go fully to the level of fruition. So I just wanted to put that out there, even as much as I sometimes use these criteria, just to be fair. What are your thoughts?

Yeah, so let me address the belief in rites and rituals. I think things like that help you with the meditation, like the precepts. One of the things that I did on retreat, or continue to do on retreat, whether I'm teaching them or when I was going on retreat for myself, was to take the precepts, at least the five basic precepts. That can be considered to be a ritual, but I think there has to be a fine delineation between what is a ritual and what is seen as a foundational aid to the practice. I see that as part of being in sila. So if there are certain things that you do, certain things that could be denoted as rituals, because let's say you bow or you show reverence, or you take the precepts every morning, or whatever it might be, although it might seem ritualistic, I see it as a preparatory exercise

in the meditation process. In fact, I see it as part of the meditation process. That is where I see sila, samadhi and panna. The other way I look at rites and rituals, or the belief in rites and rituals, or the clinging to rites and rituals, I see in a different light. There are certain rites and rituals, or the idea of certain rites and rituals, that have to do with the belief in luck. What I mean by that is some people have this lucky rabbit's foot with them, or they always have to do certain kinds of things before they leave the house, and things like that. Those kinds of clinging to rites and rituals are in direct violation of the understanding of karma and effort and choice and intention, and every action has an intention, and so on, and therefore every action has an effect. But the idea of this belief in luck bypasses that somehow. So I see that as another way of understanding the clinging to rites and rituals, from that perspective.

And then finally, clinging to the Dhamma itself. That is to say, there is a sense of an attachment, let's say, to the practice, an attachment or identification with the states of jhana or the arupa jhanas, or an identification with an understanding of a particular element of the Dhamma, or a pride. That conceit I also see as there within that clinging to rites and rituals. When it comes to the belief in a personal self, I see this more as an intellectual understanding. That is to say,

there are people who still have conceit even when they have stream entry. They still identify with certain things. They still identify with the body and mind, the processes of mind. They still identify with the sense of I, me or mine, but they have some insight into understanding that, yeah, there isn't this unchanging permanent self. It's always different kinds of self, if you will. It's not the same self that you wore two minutes ago, or two years ago, or 20 years ago. It's always in flux. So there is a change in view. There is a change in that perspective.

where somebody sees that, yeah, now upon assessment and understanding and reviewing, I can't say that there is actually a permanent self. I can't really believe that in that anymore. And when it comes to doubt, I see that as doubt in the practice, or doubt in the path, or doubt in the Dhamma, or however you want to put it. But I also see it from the perspective of one of the ways that they describe doubt, which is the inability to understand what is wholesome and unwholesome. So, having doubt in understanding what are the wholesome states of mind and qualities of mind, and what are the opposite of that, and being unable to actually follow the right path. That's another level of doubt that I could see.

Nice. And you mentioned there, talking about late aspects of oneself, getting things and not getting things, or at least functionally. So it's a funny way to speak of it. I think of this a lot these days in the same way I kind of think of internal family systems, where we can have parts of ourselves that have a wisdom or understanding or perspective, and parts of ourselves that don't really seem to get it yet. That was my experience, where there were parts that seemed thoroughly established in certain understandings. Of course, this, of course, that's undeniable. And yet, functionally, it would be years before it felt like all the parts of the system just did not have any option but to understand it. Right, when there wasn't a misunderstanding at the immediate perceptual level, the misinterpretation of a thought or a concept about something. It all took a while for all the layers of mind to see that there were literally just colours, textures, sounds, forms rolling on naturally, and having that be everything: all intentions and thoughts and everything.

And so, yeah, so it seems like, and it was interesting to watch. There would be parts that didn't seem to be on the same page for a while, right? Internal parts that didn't seem to be on the same page. And watching the layers and layers of that was a fascinating process. And to see the understanding slowly percolate down through different aspects of the system. So we've talked about, are there other important criteria you think about for stream entry that would be worth talking about before we move on to the ones that are going to get more interesting? Definitely having some level of

giving importance to the precepts, giving importance to sila. So one of the things I've noticed is that those who have a certain stream entry, if they do break a precept, they immediately feel the pressure around that, the tension around that, and they immediately go ahead and retake those precepts. So there's a reverence for being virtuous, a reverence not in the sense of, oh, I need to be this way, but it's just quite natural that that mind, being purified by that experience of stream entry, sees the importance of maintaining the precepts and sees the importance of maintaining sila. So I have seen people who, when they do break a precept and they have a certain stream entry, they immediately recognize that and then immediately

let that go and then take the precept again. But it is also very difficult, I would say, for somebody who has a certain stream entry to break a precept, even the minor precepts. And you mean like not killing a mosquito, or not killing? So, because it gets, I've seen a range. And so, having talked with a reasonable number of people that I think there's a reasonable probability have stream entry in the technical meditative sense, and here's where it's about to get interesting: I am actually somewhat skeptical, and I think this is one of the shadow sides of Buddhism, that people who have some of the Cluster B personality disorders, particularly what might be classified as sociopathy, a lack of ordinary automatic empathy or the ability to feel others' feelings or the pain and suffering of others

I have an unfortunate amount of evidence that just continues to accumulate that there are some people who, unfortunately, never really had those centers, and when they woke up they still kind of don't have them. And so I actually think there are exceptions to this, unfortunately: that an awakened sociopath or psychopath might just be an awakened sociopath or psychopath. And I hate to say that. And I think this is one of the shadow sides of Buddhism that actually requires serious study, because, as you know, as Dharma scandal after Dharma scandal, I don't think all of these people were, you know, below stream entry from a technical meditative point of view. Maybe some of them, but I don't think all of them. And I've known other people, who are friends, who are not famous teachers, who I thought had sociopathic tendencies before, and I thought they had sociopathic tendencies after.

And then I'm like, and it sometimes got better, sometimes didn't. There's this range. And so I actually think this is the one that Buddhism has to be careful about. And I think there just needs to be more science and study around this, and I don't know how to do it, but I think it needs to be done. So that's just my little skeptical pushback.

I think for people with ordinary empathy, ordinary human decency, and an ordinary sense of that i i also definitely see some increased trend towards an appreciation of of you know feeling other people's pain and understanding the negative consequences of things people have done in the world i've seen that as well though i've also seen that after the arising and passing away so after the udya bayanana i know some people who suddenly were very very inspired to change their life to stop you know whatever drugs they were doing to you know to to suddenly you know suddenly change their profession to something more ethical i've seen that a lot of times so some sometimes that even happens earlier but but i have seen examples where people who i think really did have impressive levels of technical meditation mastery who i didn't do not think they were that well developed in in sila like you know and so this is where we're going to start to disagree a little bit because i'm not as convinced of all of the package models as i call them where as soon as you see impermanence you automatically get a substantial

upgrade in your sila. I'm not sure that always happens, though I'm certain it sometimes does. That's my little bit of pushback there. I'm curious, what do you think about such a person with a tendency, like sociopathic tendencies? Would it be possible to retrain their mind using the brahmaviharas, being able to generate? Do you think it's even possible for them to generate loving kindness or compassion?

I think this needs to be studied. And the question is, if they'd never had those brain centers in the first place, are you going to be able to wake them up or train them? I wonder if this is something structural. I'm no professional psychologist, but my reading on this is that the personality disorders generally seem to have this sort of fixed quality, that you can work with them. You can gain insight into them. Things can get better. I've met sociopaths who had insight into what they were, and they could talk about it. But most of them reveled in it, that they could do that. So it's a strange thing. They actually considered it an upgrade not to feel pain when somebody else felt pain. It just felt to them like adding more suffering to suffering.

And so that's a very tricky thing to work with. And I wonder, it seemed almost like a different species, like a different set of wiring, and it's hard to relate to. And as someone who feels a lot of empathy, one of my biggest challenges walking into hospitals is just: I could feel other people getting needle sticks in my body, and it would make me nauseous, because I'm something of a needle phobe. But it's not just for me, it's for other people too. It took me a long time to get over that. It was very challenging, because I could, like, spinal taps. I could feel the popping in my own spine when it was going into their needle, going into their spine. It was just, ah, the crunching of bones, like, ah, you know

but i know people who had never had any of that a lot of men ended up surgeons because they just don't they don't have that it's easy for them they don't they didn't have any trouble with that because they don't feel it and so i actually somehow sometimes i've wondered if this is a structural thing i don't know i'm just putting it out there as a question that i think science needs to think about and to actually study i wonder if as the paths progress and the power of the mind is unlocked it seems um in various ways if such individuals could become enhanced in their pathology i wonder if that's possible is it possible to become a sort of optimized sociopath or i mean optimized for sociopathy or psychopathy i wonder if that's the case if stream entry doesn't seem to make a dent in in in uh addressing that sort of a condition um could it actually exacerbate it or perhaps even make it worse that's a conversation i've probably had

for 50 hours in various contexts with various people, and the answer I think is maybe, and that worries me. Along which dimensions do you... what concerns you? Which dimensions concern you? Which traits do you think are exacerbated, and in which way? Could it be made more dangerous? Let's say a brighter-minded, more aware tiger is probably a better hunter. So does this imply then that such people, do you think, would be drawn to practice for different reasons, or motivated to continue for different reasons, or even engage in practice in a different way? Or are we now stretching a bit too much on the differences? Delson, do you have thoughts on this? I've been talking a lot. I was wondering what your thoughts are. Yeah, I mean, it's an interesting question, because the idea that you would have people with sociopathic tendencies

who could probably experience certain states of mind. Of course, I haven't come across people with those kinds of tendencies, so I can't speak from experience to say that they have attained stream entry, or that they have said that they've attained stream entry and any of the paths beyond that. But in my mind, it would seem fairly difficult, if not impossible, because at least from the perspective I'm seeing it from, the sutra-based perspective, there has to be some kind of cultivation of empathy. There has to be some kind of cultivation.

of kindness, and, just as you said, general human decency, and so whatever they might be experiencing could be experiences that are quite valid, but could it be that what they are mistaking for stream entry is not actually stream entry or any of the paths? It's entirely possible that it is not stream entry, even though they report all the increased technical, meditative, perceptual, etc. capabilities that you would expect of a stream enterer and would not expect of someone who wasn't. So that is definitely possible, and this is, I think, a question that needs to be sorted out. But the other thing is, the few I've talked to, they report, that I think fall into this category, they don't have remorse in an ordinary sense, and so they don't have one of the hindrances. They don't have guilt in an ordinary sense, and so they don't have one of the hindrances. They're not racked by feelings of 'oh, I should have done this, I shouldn't have done that.'

And so being freed from those kinds of things, they can just be much more analytical, much more technical, much more precise, because they don't have those kinds of concerns weighing them down, which most people do, because we all had childhoods, or we didn't know we were doing, we had adolescence, we've all made so many mistakes, so that most people have some sort of residual sense of guilt or shame or something. They don't seem to have this, right? They don't seem to. And so I actually wonder if it isn't a technical enhancement that reduces some hindrances and reduces some of the mind, just seeing clearly impermanence. Perhaps the last question on this topic. Very interesting, a side street we've gone down here. Of course, your mentor Bill Hamilton, Daniel, wrote a book, Saints and Psychopaths.

Yes, which is a memoir of his spiritual life, and he seemed to almost alternately fall in with various different gurus or spiritual teachers, one who was a saint, the nexus, a psychopath, the next. I mean, not quite like that, but he got deep in with some of them. And he makes the point there that it's actually very difficult to differentiate between, as he puts them, a saint and psychopath, if we just use that in a very loose sense, because, as you point out, there are some similarities. And of course, one is difficult for one to assess higher than one is, just as a beginner guitar player is difficult for them to assess a novice guitar player, shades of virtuosity of an advanced guitar player, because it's just all better than them.

Sociopaths, for example, are known, or cluster B people, people with cluster B personality types, can be very charismatic, can be very impactful. There can be a sort of potency to that. As you say, lack of, say, guilt, or depending on how it manifests in that particular cluster B disorder, how could one tell? And this is the question that Bill Hamilton wrestles with throughout his memoir: how can one tell? Is this tremendously impressive, rather equanimous person who seems able to bring a tremendous amount of attention and attentional potency to our interactions, etc., all the sorts of things that tend to impress someone about a guru? How can one tell if that's a result of some sort of spiritual cultivation, or if it's the result of some sort of a personality disorder, or perhaps even a mixture of both?

I have a friend who visits somewhat often who spent years with Osho, one of these curious examples, right? And I actually have another friend who spent years with him as well. And they both were very, very impressed, right? And about what they learned there, how they grew there. And both of them are quite convinced this person had something. They had some extraordinarily deep, unusual capacity and wisdom, something, powers, focus, something in the way they were able to convey and teach, transformed and changed their lives. They're not the only ones to have thought this. Lots of people did. And yet, obviously, there were some significant problems that bend any ordinary consideration of sila. It is possible that it didn't even have stream entry in the sense of the way you think of it, or perhaps even the way I think of it.

But there are so many examples of this that it starts to beg the question. The history of Tibetan Buddhism, for example, which I'm quite sure Tibetan practices are extraordinarily effective in producing wisdom. So it would be, I think, relatively absurd to assume otherwise. And yet the history of Tibet is monastery after monastery being run by what appear to be warlord psychopaths, warring over slaves and assassinating each other, and these people seem to rise to the top again and again. And so it's just one of these things that I think we need to be careful about. And one of the messages of my book is we need to not assume that insight will necessarily solve all our sila problems, our morality problems, or our concentration, that we can't rely on any of the three trainings on its own to solve all the other issues.

And so that's why I just think we need to just make sure we maintain all three, and not say, 'Oh, if you get stream entry, suddenly your morality trip is solved.' That makes me very, very nervous as a functional, practical thing. I just, anyway, that's why I push back against those models somewhat, because I just think, no, we need all three, all three parts of the path. Yeah, I'm in total agreement with that. I think sila, samadhi and panna, ethics, meditation and insight, they all work hand in hand, they all sort of inform each other, so one can't be without the other really. There is an interdependency with it. So it's interesting when you think about, there's so many examples in India when I was there of different kinds of gurus who are very charismatic, who are very charming in personality, and they speak very eloquently, and they seem to have very great, huge PR campaigns to show their eloquence, and so on and so forth.

But at the same time, sometimes when you talk to them or when you interact with them, they might seem very simple, and they might seem very down to earth in their approach and in the way that they speak with you. But I think one element that could be a touchstone to see whether somebody has wisdom or not is to really see if they understand. How do they see themselves? How do they see the world around them? And how do they see other beings in this world? I think that's a basic question to ask them, and then the answer will probably give a lot of insight into their mind.

Nice. Do you want to talk about second path now, which is where we start to diverge a little bit? This is where it'll get even a little spicier. Yes, let's do that, that would be fantastic. I might quote you, actually, Daniel, from your book Mastering the Core Teachings of the Buddha, and you write: 'I have no significant problems with most of the traditional descriptions of stream entry. My real problem with the Theravada four path model comes as soon as it starts talking about second path.' And then you go on to lay out why that is so. Yeah, this I think is perhaps where it might get very interesting indeed. Do you want to go first, because I think that'll give us an interesting contrast? Delson: Sure, sure. So it is a little more challenging to understand how the reduction of craving and aversion is really assessed, right? Because in the case of the stream enterer, they still have

according to the tradition, according to the sutta-based tradition, they still have craving present in them. They still have sensual craving in them. They still have aversion in them. But with the sakadagami, the once-returner, there is a reduction of that. And the way it's understood, at least from the way I have seen it, is that with the stream enterer there is still present craving and aversion, but that craving and aversion will be there for some time in the mind in terms of the effects of that craving. Whereas for the once-returner, second path of sakadagami, there is a reduction in craving and aversion, in the sense that when they do experience craving, they're immediately or almost immediately able to recognize that there has been craving present and able to let that go. So I would see that as a sharpening of the mindfulness, a sharpening of the attention, to be able to recognize as soon as, or as possible, as soon as possible.

when there is some kind of tension in the mind in the form of craving, in the form of some kind of aversion, and the recovery period from that craving, the recovery period from that aversion, is reduced as compared to a stream enterer. So in other words, if somebody has an experience of aversion where they get angry, they might be angry for maybe a day or two, but in the case of, let's say, a once-returner, the anger that they experience might last only an hour. Just giving a very basic example, but that hopefully illustrates the understanding that reduction in craving and aversion is really about recognizing it and the ability to let go of it quicker than it would be for a streamer.

So curiously enough, we actually agree, and we haven't gotten as spicy yet as we will, but we're about to, I think, the third path. So one of the things I noticed after what I thought of as a second path, where I had gone through what felt like a whole other full insight cycle and had another quantum leap, was the precision with which I could notice all these little sensations and layers of mind and subtle fractal aspects of the insight stages. I noticed stuff about the arc of genres I didn't notice before, like really the entrance stage, and how the genre sort of blooms and develops, and then, exactly, like when the mind starts turning away from it, and it's like, then coming to equanimity with it, and coming to the next genre, and the subtle shifts. There were all these things, and suddenly I was like a technical practitioner in a way I wasn't before. So that's what the technical guy noticed: all these subtleties of insight stages with insight.

Stages, genres within genres, all this sort of fractal stuff was suddenly really exciting to me, but I also did notice, as you've said that, and there's an example I give in my book, where a truck, I think it gives in the book, nearly ran me off the highway through a guardrail, and the anger, and then it just... I just watched it, and I was like, whoa.

And it wasn't something I had to do. It wasn't reflective. It wasn't like, okay, I have an increased ability to notice that I'm clinging to the thing and that this is causing suffering. The mind just did it. It wasn't a reflective thing, it was just an automatic thing. It was a different kind of wiring. It's like the ground wire to just ground the lightning down was just so much stronger, like the power could just flow through it much faster. That wasn't that I didn't get angry or desirous. But I will agree with you in what I think of as the envelope, which is the term for music, which is the attack, sustain, release or decay, was changed in multiple ways. And also part of that was because of the clear seeing of just the thoughts and the physical sensations. Part of that was the proportionality, so there was more sense of being in the space more often, where the little physical sensations and the thoughts are not as... they don't become as big and powerful.

So there was more a sense of a grounding in the immediate space, where this interactive back and forth thing of thoughts and feelings playing to each other. There were just much more like little stuff here and little stuff here playing with each other. It wasn't as big a deal. And I think something in that clear baseline level of perception made the process of emotions moving through a lot easier. But what it didn't do is make them go away. There was just this increased sense of proportionality and their temporality, meaning that it was just a little thought that just flickered and was gone. Okay, that's not as... it didn't re-trigger the same chemical and neural responses in the same kind of way. As anybody who's been around me knows, I still have plenty of feelings. But there was something different about it that was a clear and quantum upgrade, so that I will definitely say

Thoughts, well, I'm in complete agreement with you as well. I think there's no point of differentiation here at this point. Okay, cool, let's go. Maybe we go to the third one, where it's about to get really... that'll be the more interesting one. Can I ask you a muggle question? Yeah. If we've talked now, and I really appreciate, by the way, the way you're both contextualizing your own personal experiences of these path attainments, of attaining these levels, I think that's very interesting. And then going more broadly, speaking more generally, doctrinally, and what you know, what you've observed anecdotally in students and friends, I think that's really interesting. If you think about stream entry and think about second path,

you've described it as another quantum leap. Perhaps this is a question that's better asked later, when we've completed all four, but does it seem as significant and as revolutionary as first path is, or is there a sense of the first one being the most special, or the most revolutionary, or shocking, the most profound in that way? I think there is a certain delineation there. There's a reason why there's a delineation in these paths, and one is because of the clarity of understanding how mind works. So it gets even more profound in terms of how you see the links of dependent origination, and what you see when you see the links of dependent origination. So to that extent, that's what I see in terms of the profoundness of those attainments, each of those path attainments, because in stream entry there is some, let's say, stumbling into, if you will, understanding the links of dependent origination. But now that you're here on the path, you get into sakadagami, get into the second

there's a deeper appreciation and understanding of the links of dependent origination, to the point where you're able to really precisely see, oh, here is contact, here is feeling, or here is the intention arising. And so that's the reason, because of that sharpness and clarity of mind, that you're able to pinpoint that the craving is coming out. So that's the reason I would see. I would see the reason why you have these clear divisions, and why they are getting profound at each stage, because of the clarity of dependent origination. The way I see it, dependent origination is really the heart of the Dhamma. Understanding that, you understand all of the Dharma. You really understand how the world works and how the mind works, and you have a profound sense of wisdom that allows you to let go and experience the complete cessation of suffering. So the extent to which you experience suffering also is reduced because of that clarity. So it sounds like stream entry, in a sense, turns the whole world upside down, to make things rather loose, to say things rather loosely,

but the second part is this: as a development of that initial revolution, in a sense, as if it's not itself a whole other world upside down revolution, would that be fair to say, Delson, in your presentation? Yes, I would say it's fair. Very interesting, thank you. I would similarly agree with that. So if I didn't get stream entry, that is a catastrophic thing to think about my life, if that hadn't happened. Not that the rest weren't very important, but that was one of the most dramatic changes.

It was just an entirely different universe of appreciation, of technical capability, of change. It was, I mean, the first and the last. The middle is interesting, because the middle is taking all these themes and developing them. I would agree, but the first one and the last one, to me, were the most game-changing. Um, just if I had to... it's funny, I used to think back on Bill's model, where he thought each... he had this model of five 20% reductions, and stream entry would be the first 20%, and second path, the next 20%, and Anagami, the next 20%, and arahatship, the next 20%, and then death would be the last 20%.

But I'm not sure I would quite rank it that way. I would push stream entry more, and I would push fourth path more reduction. That's just for me. I would weight them more highly, even though the others were still important. But again, there's probably a range. I think everyone's different. And Bill Hamilton had what we called the stuff model, where at each path you have more or less sort of stuff, like kilesas, or defilements, or latent, whatever, at each layer of mind, and some people have more or less. The curious thing is, I had no dark night between on my way to third path. Really none. I don't remember anything challenging.

I was just across the A and P, I was practicing, and then a month later I was brushing my teeth and this shift happened, which was again a big change, but I didn't really have any challenges that I remember at all. There was nothing interesting. It's just going along, and okay, cycles and stuff. But why that is, I don't know. Whereas for other people it might be this much more complicated journey. I've heard a wide range of... the second to third path differentiator, if you talk to the IMS teachers, for example, that's the one that a lot had struggled with. And that's why they were sort of in awe of Deepama, who thought she was third path, and like, "Oh my gosh, so rare."

And I don't know why there's this range, but third path for me is suddenly where we really diverge. And this is the one where suddenly there was this sense of immersion in this clear field of open, present, luminous something that was just there, and the cycles didn't mess with it much, and jhanas didn't mess with it much. Whereas before, there was some focus on fruition as really kind of being something more ultimate. And this was ultimate too, but not in the same way. Suddenly this was very ultimate, but there was just some annoying little part that didn't entirely get that, right? So this was it. It was suddenly immersive, like wide, broad, luminous, present, like, oh, in the game, in a way that even second path wasn't. And then the little subtle things that didn't see things that way just became weirdly annoying, like a single mosquito can keep you up at night, annoying in your mosquito net or whatever, that kind of level of annoying. But it's really small. It's like, oh, and that was me for six years.

So, cycling around, playing with that. But what didn't happen, and this is where everything started to diverge, is I could still get angry. It had an increased, again, emotional envelope change. It had an increased proportionality that was much more hardwired. But to say I couldn't get angry, or I couldn't feel sexual arousal, or I couldn't, that wasn't true. There was just this sort of forced grounding in the proportional perspective around it that was really different. And so here is where we start to... but it's also worth knowing I was a householder. I was married. I was in a context where that was what was going on. And so then the question is, does lay life versus sort of a monastic or renunciate life sort of change effects?

Like, does the path start to diverge? What's the range? Is that really third path? But suddenly I could also do nirodha samapatti, which is the other thing I had tried to do before, and I could not. And suddenly I could, a month later, a little over a month, something like that. And so, after a bunch of saying, well, hey, does this really speck out? And then that being one of the other sort of tests of it, and going, oh, okay, well, that's interesting. So that's going to be a fun topic. Hopefully we can talk about it. But then the emotional component, in terms of the traditional model of, like, utterly uninterested in sex, could not possibly have sex, couldn't get angry, that wasn't true for me.

And so here's where we're going to start to get into it, because I know your experience has been somewhat different. And then here we get into the possible range of development, and whole traditions have split over this, by the way, like Zen and the Tibetan split with the Theravada in part over this question, right? Because they just feel like, no, no, no, that doesn't seem to be the way it works.

And I wonder if there isn't individual, like genetic or receptor wiring variation, or something, in terms of what happens with people, because we're diverse and complicated creatures. So those are open questions. What are your thoughts? Yeah, that's a lot to process, but I would say first and foremost, the way I see the third path is that there is complete eradication of sensual craving. So there is no identifying with any of the sensory experiences that are going on. To the extent that it causes craving, sensual craving, I would say there is still some craving for, let's say, what they call the form realms or the formless realms, craving for existence, craving for a certain kind of state to be in, and so on and so forth. And then the complete eradication of aversion, which means that such an individual

wouldn't get even in the slightest irritated or annoyed or angry. Now, this is obviously based in tradition. The experience has been that there is a complete eradication of that. But there is still, like I said, a certain level of conceit around the Dhamma at this stage. There's a certain level of clinging to the Dhamma which has to be eradicated for the fourth path. What that means is there is this sense of this 'I am', in relation to the experience of the jhanas or in relation to whatever experience is happening.

Well, that last thing you said, I agree with, actually. So that was my experience on my last retreat. I had gotten sick of the jhanas. Oddly, I had gotten sick of all of it, and I was just willing to tear it all to shreds because I didn't care. It hadn't brought me the genres and all my capabilities hadn't brought me what I wanted, and so I was willing to tear it all down. I was finally like, yeah, no, that's not that, no, cannot cling to that, not helpful. But there's that middle piece, then, where we disagree.

Yeah, yeah. It seems we have different perspectives on that. The experience of some people about it is that there just doesn't come to be any kind of craving for, or any kind of lust. Now, it's quite possible that they do become monastic in their lifestyle, in the sense that they become more disinterested in the lay life. Maybe they don't necessarily become former monks or sovereign eras, but they still start to lead a more monastic lifestyle. They have less interest in, you know, day-to-day affairs. At least that's been the experience that I've seen in terms of the third path.

So there might be something to be said about that whole idea of being in the lay life and being, you know, dead center in the lay life and experiencing all the different responsibilities of the lay life, that probably prevents the mind from experiencing the total eradication of craving and aversion to the extent of the senses. Steve, you want to weigh in here?

well other than stating the two different positions i'm wondering collegially of course as as i know both of you what you know are that way um i wonder if we can investigate that to some degree that difference to what okay delson you're you're you're talking from the traditional perspective and daniel you've you've uh used words of that perspective things like um what you said here i i can write read you scary market-driven propaganda so much i'm not saying you didn't say that of delson of course you know this is what you wrote in your book so much garbage that is life-denying dangers the out of touch with what happens and an impediment to practice for millions of people now of course thank you that's it that's an extreme statement um it is but nonetheless maybe we could talk about the implications of these two different views and perhaps dialogue how each of you might see each other something like that i think that could be very interesting yeah so that comes from having seen a bunch of people who i think weirdly enough have eliminated the last five defilements

have seen through to the end, are oddly satisfied, and yet are still able to have sex with people, for example. And I know a number of those. That's a curious thing, right? From a sort of doctoral, biophysical point of view, I wonder what would suddenly be the mechanism that would make instant impotence on seeing impermanence, no self, and suffering at that level. I think about the criticisms of the Theravada that come from the Tibetan and Zen and some other traditions, and I think about what I've seen, which is people who have chased, to use a bit of linguistic fun there, chastity. And by chasing chastity, they have become very neurotic and full of denial and shadow sides, and angry and vindictive and repressed, and it can become a serious problem. Their guilt and their denial and their confusion around all of that can, instead of inspiring a real, careful, honest analysis of the three characteristics of those experiences,

instead lead to people pushing them away. I have seen that many, many times in my colleagues on the path, and in myself at points. And so I've gone, well, which is better? So I think that there are risks and benefits and alternatives to both models, and the risks, benefits and alternatives to having a model where the elimination of every single form of desire or anger is the model. I think the problem is it can be very inspiring for some in practice, because they can recognize the suffering in those things, and that can be incredibly galvanizing of effort. At the same time, it can also cause impressive shadow sides. And I actually wonder about the perfection of the model across all biotypes. If the model doesn't lead to a range of experiences, and yes, there are some for whom, when they get it, you know, they get third path or fourth path or whatever, they get the package and they get all the aspects of the package, I have ample evidence that is not always true, that it works out that way, and that this model is too simplistic.

So that's my critique. So I think one of the things to look at is also, when people get onto this path, or look at it from, let's say, the ten fetter model, I think you put it rightly, if I understand correctly, that first of all, yes, they do get inspired by that, and so there is an inspiration to let go of the anger, let go of the more destructive emotions, and things like that. But I think what's possible is that there are two ways of doing it. That is to say, there's one which represses and suppresses that shadow side, and then in the process of repressing or suppressing it, there's no understanding of it. There's no actual insight into it. Rather, the person pushes it aside and pushes it away, and instead of looking at it, acknowledging it, understanding it, and accepting it, and seeing it as part of the mind, seeing it as part of kamma, and seeing it as part of an effect of different intentions and choices that were made in the past,

and not being hard on oneself. Because I really like that term, chasing chastity, you know, that turn of phrase, which is to say that they're trying to do something which is nearly impossible, because the way the human body is built, it's built to reproduce so that it can continue on the genetic history of humankind. But I think the perspective shift that happens is done through the methodology, is done through understanding how the method is to be done, or possibly to be done, in terms of the eradication of craving and aversion. So rather than seeing the shadow side and suppressing it, and thereby trying so hard that the mind becomes this coagulation of all of these suppressed desires and so on, and then having that idea that, okay, now there is this experience of the third path without facing or accepting and then ultimately abandoning and letting go, through the process of the way that I've come across it, which is to say,

as I just said, acknowledging it and then releasing any kind of identification with it, through a process of open awareness, through a process of understanding, forgiveness, and indeed even self-compassion. So when you do it that way, there is less attachment, because there's less suppression. The suppression, the way I understand it, leads to more attachment to those same things that the mind is trying to suppress. So it's possible that there's a difference in methodology, in the finer things or in the finer points of the practice, that lead to different experiences. Yes, that is certainly one of the range of hypotheses. That's the standard answer, right? And so, as a scientist, as someone who looks at all of us, is based on our own expert opinion, which is limited by our own personal experience, in our social circles, and our interpretation of what people say, and our own views, I've often thought we really need the science done. So one of the things I think is to validate what the range is of experiences.

And I think it's one of these things where I wonder, based on my experience of other things, like why is it that I suddenly had jhanas, including Formless Realms, days after stream entry, whereas I didn't have those before? Except when I was a young kid, I had some jhana capability that I lost for 20-something years. But then all of a sudden I had these abilities, and not everybody gets that, right? And if you look at the old texts, there was this wide range of what people got. If they practiced any technique, some people would get powers, some people didn't. Some people got jhanas, some people didn't. Some people had formless realms, some people didn't. Some people could get nirodha samapatti, some people couldn't.

Today, some people can get various duration of fruition, some people not so good at that. And there's this range. And sometimes even when people try for various things, that's not what occurs. And the outliers in terms of those who got the whole package are so striking that the Buddha would actually point them out. And then when I actually read the life of the great disciples of the Buddha, for example, is a great book. And I read between the lines and see what's going on with them. Or when I read the Vinaya and the stories about where all the rules came from, and I think, wait a second, there are places where the Buddha got so irritated with the monks, and it may have been nuns at the time too, I don't know if there was the female order then, that he left them all for the whole rains retreat.

It was like, or whatever was left of the rains retreat, said, I can't take it anymore, I'm out of here. See ya, y'all have fun. Which would seem like irritation or frustration or something. There is this sense of humanity, of them grieving for their friends, for example, when you'd think grief would be attachment to desire that they were still living, and so when their friends would die, for example. And so there are these glimpses of humanity that seem to break through the dogma. And again, it makes me wonder, I have my famous hottie in a hot tub study, which I think we need to do.

And we talked about this. And in the hottie in a hot tub study, you would take a bunch of people who are 100% certain that they have eliminated all desire, and you put them in a situation which would be expected to elicit maximum desire in many people, and you just see what happens. And then I also think about the range of human sexuality.

So the range of human sexuality and how that can change even over a lifetime is quite wide. And the question is, when does the natural range of people becoming starting out disinterested in sex, for example, so some people are just not particularly sexual to start with and then that can change over a person's life, how does that natural range overlap with insight stages? And are some of those coincidences more likely, but not necessarily? If you get this, it's 100% guaranteed you'll get that, for example? And this is these are the questions that, as a scientist rather than a dogmatist and as someone who's willing to question my own dogmas, and based on my own experience, in my conversation with various friends and things, goes well, maybe we should just do better science and see, because these are age-old questions that have divided traditions for thousands of years. And I wonder if all of you know, given the vast range of what's out there in terms of human physiology and experience and the

various effects the dharma has, I wonder if it can simply all be ascribed to technique, because I myself spent a tremendous amount of time looking at dependent origination and craving and coming up in very traditional technical models. I was introduced to those very early on and have thought a lot about this, and yet that just doesn't seem to be what happened in my particular case and that of some of my friends. Guru Viking, I think you personally know at least one example of someone that the standard models don't work out in this kind of way. And so I'll just put that out there as open questions that I wonder about, my own dogmas and certainties about these things.

Yes, I'm curious, Daniel, if you've ever met anyone who you were convinced had completely eradicated them. All lust and anger? Well, yes, you've said that there were people who you were fairly convinced were a third and perhaps even fourth path who hadn't eradicated them, which you said was what led to the quote that I read earlier, that view. Have you ever met somebody who you thought, oh, actually, I think this person perhaps has eradicated those fetters?

Well, Delson, obviously, is one of these curious people who makes these public claims and seems a delightful person, so I have no experience of him being angry or lustful. But it's also a question of time and circumstance, and then what is the ordinary human range? So the other thing is, I know people who seem to have no obvious sexuality or lust, and I've never seen get angry despite having known them for years. It's decades, some, and they just were kind of built that way. And yet, I don't think they, did they have any technical insight from any capability? Would they be able to do any of the stuff we're talking about, or the bright-minded analysis of clear perception of all this stuff?

I don't know, maybe they just happen to have it, but I don't think so. Are they talking about jhanas and cycles and these fine-grained technical details? I don't know, but that just seems to be how they are. That just seems to be the way they were kind of built. And so then the question is, true, true and unrelated? What's the overlap? So when I think about, like, a perfect Venn diagram where all the circles perfectly align, the world of biology and human experience just then really doesn't work that way. I was a doctor for too long.

Atypical presentations of typical conditions are more typical than are more common than, what I'm trying to say. Anyway, the point is there's this range, and I wonder about that just as a scientist and an open person who's attempting to be open-minded about this. What's the range, and should people sometimes question their own range? That of course if I got this, then everybody else will get that, or if I didn't get this, then of course nobody else would get that. These are the questions, and again I think the world is probably more complicated. What are your thoughts, Delson? I think it'd be very interesting, actually, to put this under some kind of scientific investigation, like your hottie in a hot tub kind of experiment, something like that, which then people who make these claims can go under that kind of investigation. And it's the whole spectrum of

the technical mastery of meditation itself, can you get into jhanas, can you get into nirodha samapatti, I think, which is going to be an interesting subject to talk about. And then to what extent can you get into nirodha samapatti in terms of duration and determinations and so on and so forth, and then of course seeing that part of seeing if there is a version there, if there is craving? But I don't really have a scientific background. So I would be curious to hear your thoughts, Daniel, on if there would be a possibility to do an experiment like that. And if so, is there some part of the brain or some part of the physiology that we'd be looking for to see if there is actually these eradication of the defilements as it's claimed?

I think the physiology would be easier to measure in males, probably, in terms of a part that one might look at. But all joking aside, in terms of the brain centers, I don't know. In terms of the imaging, I don't know. In terms of the behavioral stuff, it would seem straightforward. And I think it would also be very important to choose a control group very carefully and to get a sense of the history of each of these people and their progression, their relationship to sexuality before. Really, the best thing would be if you could do a prospective study over decades, and you got to watch the natural history of a group of people who did or did not seem to have these attainments by other criteria, and then to watch them forward and see what the natural progression of their own relationship to sexuality or anger or maturity was, because otherwise there are a lot of factors.

Sometimes just getting older can make people's drives go down. Sometimes just getting older can make people more mature and less angry. I'm vastly less angry now than I was as a kid, for example. No comparison. I was an angry kid a lot of the time. And so the sense of what is the natural life progression and what is the range of the human range. And I think it's going to be complicated, but I would love to figure out how to do that science. Because again, the traditions have been arguing in kind of macho, angry ways, as you can see the phrases in my book or whatever, sort of a one-upsmanship and all of that.

But these days, when I look at all that, I go, yeah, but we can probably do better. I think the scientific method has options for doing this. And I think you'd need a mix of behavioralists and physiologic measurement and brain imaging and all kinds of things to sort that out. But you were talking about nirodha samapatti, which is a fun topic. So what were your thoughts on that? I think nirodha is great. Oh sorry, Steve. Oh no, go ahead, sorry. Well, perhaps before we go there, one last, two elephants in the room we ought to point out. The first being that

of course, Daniel, and we don't necessarily discuss these things, but I think they're worth just putting in the mix. Daniel, your revision of the four path model, which in your book Mastering the Core Teachings you call, what do you call the simple model, to contrast it with various other emotional perfection models and so on, you lay out various different ways in which these paths are seen. Your revision of that has been questioned by sort of orthodox, if you want, doctrinally orthodox sources. Gently, you're being polite, question, to merely question, this is being polite, but yes, you're right. Well, in fact, to go further then, it has been said by for instance Bhikkhu Analayo in his articles in Springer, the reason you don't agree with these definitions, these that you're nuancing or revising the definitions of the fourth of the fourth path model, the four path model, is because you don't have the attainments. So that's an obvious elephant in the room. Now, neither of you are

attempting to diagnose each other, and that's not the sort of discussion we're having, but I think that is an interesting and unavoidable position for, I think, a doctrinally oriented person to take. And it's interesting to me, Delson, that you're talking doctrinally here, but it is also your experience. It seems, as you've mentioned in our interview previously, that you are claiming to have completely eradicated those fetters due to your meditative accomplishment. Is that fair to say? That is fair to say, yes. Yeah. It's a very fascinating discussion, and I think both of your openness

First of all, in discussing these things is, I think, to be commended. People really do get extraordinary confrontation about these things, but also your openness to actually subject yourselves, or whoever else you might be able to fit into that hot tub, to subject yourself. Say, let's, how are we going to sort this out? Well, we can shout louder, or we can find a way of validating these claims and testing these claims, and what if there's other explanations or other factors going into this? I think this openness is a very productive way of dealing with this clash of our perspective, which is dealt with, I think, so often very unproductively.

Well, thank you. That was kind of you to say. Biko Inalio's critique is interesting, and I don't want to dwell too much on his critique. He claims I couldn't even have the very first insight of mind and body, much less anything jhanic, much less any other insight stages. So his claims of my lack of attainments are impressively complete, which is interesting considering we've never met. But what's interesting about his own articles is he also calls for science to study these things. So he calls for that as well. And I appreciate at least that point, even if I'm not so appreciative of some of his other points. But yeah, Delson, you would be willing to be part of such experiments, I just consider incredibly valuable

and to see what the imaging differences are, what the brain structure differences are. And again, to encourage maybe some prospective trials, to try to find the money to do the prospective trials. Those would be moderately expensive. Again, the shameless plug for my own charity. We would love to do those kinds of trials to see what the range of effects of meditation are, both good, bad, and weird. And to be able to do that at the large scale, prospective, longitudinally going forward across a range of traditions, where baseline measurements of all of the discussed characteristics.

And so if anybody out there listening to this, by the way, has the resources to help fund such a thing, we think we can do that kind of stuff, starting with a center that could have the imaging capability and the biometrics and all of the text speech analysis and behavioral analysis, 50 million bucks or something. So if anybody's interested in actually having this question answered, that we could actually solve some of these millennia-old debates and arguments for what I think is relatively small money, it's kind of ridiculous that we haven't done it yet. So that would be my shameless plug for the research and the charity, because then, you know, it's funny, I've sort of been three different Daniels in this

or at least three different Daniels. Daniel number one is the doctor that looks at the human range and skepticism and neuroscience and goes, well, I don't know, well, maybe we need to see, and then, but is somewhat skeptical of all of this from a sort of doctory point of view. And then there's Daniel the meditator, who revels in the technical attainments and loves the models and the orthodoxy and the debates and the arguments, and as you've seen, my online persona. But then there's like this third Daniel, which is the Daniel I actually prefer to be most of the time these days, given a choice of various sort of Daniel modes, which is inviting people into the science and trying to resolve these debates and see what the actual human range is and performance test it and just say, hey, what does it actually do and what do these things lead to? Because if there are techniques that lead to better effects, of course we should know that, and if there are techniques that lead to a range of effects

even some different from what they purport to produce, we should know that. And thus we can fulfill the ethical obligation from a sila point of view of risk, benefits, and alternatives of any of these practices. If you do this practice, or you follow this path, or you adopt this model, or this ideal of practice, here's what we know: for this many people it will do this, and for this many people, do that, and these are the other things you could have done that will do something differently. And apply the same ethical considerations that medicine in theory demands, for patient autonomy, or practitioner autonomy in this case, that you should give them all the information they need to make informed decisions. I don't think that scientifically any of us have all the information we need to make informed decisions that scale to a population-based level, and so that's what I am calling for these days and spending most of my time advocating for, because while the arguments are a lot of fun, they weren't getting satisfying, right? They weren't reducing suffering in the way I hoped they would

satisfying right they weren't reducing suffering in the way i hoped they would and i think this might reduce suffering and produce satisfaction in a way that the dogmatic arguments between oh i got this and i got that and so what does that mean it's kind of like with coronavirus like one person never got vaccinated and has been going out and partying and they never caught it and they're great and another person got triple vaxxed and they freaking died and that doesn't you know tragic but it doesn't tell you what to do you know for your own self to make those kinds of decisions and i think it's the coronavirus pandemic has been a fascinating exercise in people suddenly thinking more hopefully with more nuance i pray about risk benefits and alternatives in an uncertain world where we kind of know some things about the physiology in the range of what can happen but we don't know all of it and we can't trust that all the brokers of the information are totally honest we there's ample evidence we can't totally trust the governments the pharmaceutical companies

the anti-vaxxers, and so with this kind of thing I would hope to just figure it out. So it's a long discussion and advocating for something better. Do you have any comments there, Delson, or shall we move on? No, I just want to say that it would be interesting to see if we could find people who have these kinds of claims and then have them under this vigorous scientific testing and be able to actually see what it is that they did in terms of their practice. Is there some kind of common core in terms of commonality, let's say, in terms of the practices that they're doing and that leads them to what they're claiming it has led them to, whereas other people who are claiming and then the scientific evidence says otherwise, according to the doctrine, what is it that they're doing differently, if it is something that is different?

So my hypothesis there is that it could be possible that there is a difference in how they're practicing and what they're practicing that's leading them there, compared to those who are claiming and don't necessarily satisfy the doctrines. And then the other interesting question is, how many other people in the tradition and the specific techniques you're mentioning do you know that have done what you've done, and that you believe they have done what you say you have done? And so that's another interesting question. What's that range? Because it's a popular technique, I think, or somewhat found at IMS and other places, and certainly gaining in traction and respect, obviously. And so what do you find the range of effects being from it?

Well, a lot of people are talking about it being actually pretty life affirming. I mean, people are having greater states of joy, greater states of satisfaction, reduction in suffering, and so on and so forth. Obviously, because they're developing loving kindness and compassion and the other brahmaviharas, they're able to experience that and be able to deal with managing any kinds of potential conflicts that come up, and things like that. But as to who's claiming what, you'd have to have a survey, and then see if people come in and want to be tested on vigorous scientific experiments.

So you're not willing to share anecdotally what your sort of finger-in-the-water assessment of the temperature is? Well, I could only speak from what I see from certain people, but I think they should speak for themselves. Well, where should we go next? You mentioned Nirodha Samapatti. Daniel and I and Delson, I agree with you both. I think that's very interesting. Or should we talk about arahantship and then circle back? What seems the most appropriate route at this point? I think sequentially, you were able to do Nirodha Samapatti at third path. Is that true?

That's right. Okay, so that you say. So then maybe sequentially, that would be the interesting thing. We get to the end of it. So Nirodha Samapatti, this curious attainment differentiated from ordinary cessations by the setup, the entrance, the thing itself, the exit, and the afterglow, right, and its after effects as well as its attainment criteria. So for those listening along at home, I'm just going to give the quick skinny on this.

So this is a rare, somewhat rare technical attainment that requires both at least Anagami Hoda third path from a technical Theravada Buddhist theory orthodoxy point of view, as well as mastery of the formless realms to the eighth jhana, neither perception nor non-perception, plus the ability to sort of strike some curious balance in between the two, where you can blend one's shamatha and vipassana practice or samadhi and whatever, in a way that achieves this right sort of mix. So it's neither a concentration nor an insight attainment. And then one enters into it in a different way than when it enters into through cessation, where one loses thoughts and then the body and then consciousness itself, in a sort of an analog power down way, and then one is basically in something like a coma for a while, and then one comes out in the reverse way one went in, and then there's this massive, long-lived, thick, totally awesome afterglow that is like the perfect balance of clarity and tranquility. It's ridiculous.

This is a somewhat rare thing that I don't know that many people, honestly, who I think might be able to do it, and who claim it. It's pretty, those are... it's a relatively small club as far as I can tell, and so we are two of the people who make this claim now. Delson appears, if our claims are to be believed, to have more skill in this than I. I've been, again, I'm a sort of a quick attainment person but not much of a duration person, so I've struggled to be certain I've ever had much duration to my fruitions. For example, where some people appear to be able to get this, I can, but I can get multiples. For example, with nirodha, the longest I have any external validation that I've ever done it is approximately 25 minutes, which is not that long as these things go, which can last up to seven days, or maybe some Tibetans claim even ten. So this is, anyway, there seems to be

I wonder if it might have something to do with our inclination. So my inclination was not jhana's when I was younger. In my practice I would sit down and stuff would be very particulate and jarring but not very jhanic, whereas you seem to have more initial jhanic aptitude. I would wonder about predisposing factors to duration, if that's one of them. You know, I don't know, but there's not a lot of people to study on this, so it'd be an interesting open question. So I'm going to stop there and see what your thoughts are on this.

Yeah, I can talk to you about, let's say, the training towards experiencing or towards being able to have nirodha samapatti, and that is really, as you just said, in relation to determining duration. So there comes a point where you actually start practicing with the first jhana, and you make a determination to be able to stay in that jhana for a certain period of time. You have to be able to hit it accurately, I mean precisely, exactly. And so it's a process of somehow retraining or training the mind to be able to pinpoint exactly when the intention arises, and then the jhana experience is there, and then when time is up, to be out of jhana. Now, there was some prior training before that, and I will say, in my own personal life, in my experience, I have always had the ability, ever since I could remember, to be able to take a nap and say, all right, after 20 minutes I'm going to wake up, or after 25 minutes I'm going to get up, and I would hit it exact 100

so there is some innate sense of being able to be precise in my ability to come out of a certain state even if it's just a nap so that is something that we do in part of our training um although it's not talked about much which is you know when you are on retreat uh try to see if you can wake up instead of 5 a.m at 4 57 a.m or 4 59 a.m the next day and so on and so forth no so not exactly 5 a.m but maybe 501 and so on so that helps to train the mind to be able to practice those determinations so the training went where you deal with the first jhana and you have a determination to be in that jhana for a specified amount of time and when you hit it then you go on to the next one and the next one and next one all the way up to the eighth but as you're doing that you're also determining

Micro levels of time, in terms of being in the first jhana for only two seconds, being in the second jhana only for four seconds, being in the third jhana only for seven seconds, and so on and so forth. And then what you do is you're able to then go from the first jhana and skip all the way to the first arupa jhana. You go from the first jhana to infinite space, then you go from infinite space to the second jhana, and then the second jhana to infinite consciousness, and then from infinite consciousness to the third jhana, and just at random, and see if the mind is able to make those jumps. Finally, when the mind is trained to that extent, now you go into the practice of being able to determine nirodha samapatti. So I just wanted to give some background on how that training happened, to be able to do nirodha samapatti.

Nice, I very much appreciate all those technical details, and that honest tech, that's just really useful. I myself, actually, as a kid could sometimes wake up just a minute before my alarm. Some when, I've been able to do this intermittently, and sometimes I had a phase in my life when I was a kid where I would just look at the clock and it would be one, two, three, four. It's sort of a slightly OCD kind of a thing to do, and that would just happen again and again. It's like I would watch it change to one, two, three, four, and plenty of people have noticed something of this ability when they have to get up early for a flight or school or something. So yeah, I've had some of that intermittently, and I've also, I did a bunch of that training, as I mentioned in my book. We're shifting between not just jhanas but also insight stages. So this is something I got from a mix of Kenneth Folk and the old commentarial texts that

talk about mastery of jhana, which is, and Bill Hamilton, which was sort of slam shifting, not only between jhanas but also jhanas, so going from, like, fear to boundless space, or back down to dissolution, and then shift down to the A and P, and then up to equanimity, and then back to re-observation, and doing these very elaborate jumps of mind, and also did some adhitthana training when it came to jhanas. But what I found in that is even when I was the rapid jhana stuff was relatively easy for me. Though I should mention, suddenly here we get into more controversy, right? So depending on who you had as your guest, Guru Steve, you would have some people who suddenly would be pushing back and say, wait, you cannot be in the first jhana for two seconds, it has to be a minimum of four hours or 24 hours or something, right?

So you get these, so suddenly we'd be into the jhanic purist debates of where they add the duration criteria as well, rather than just the state itself. And so, anyway, so that gets to be able to resolve in a jhana to go to another jhana. Well, that would be a thought you can have. That. So, right, so suddenly, if you had certain other guests like from Pa Auk or Ajahn Brahm kind of traditions, suddenly there would be this whole debate of what's jhana, right? But it's interesting, we're at least on the same page in that you could be in the jhana for two seconds, that I agree with, or that you could shift between them, or make a resolution in one jhana to go to another, or make a resolution in a jhana to have it last for a certain period of time, that I'll agree with. But it was interesting, I found in my own practice, and I don't know if this is my own wiring or what, that the pull, the pull to the next thing was just sort of automatic.

And that the more powerful the mind got, rather than being able to stay in the first jhana, it would, as my retreat practice would go on and I would ramp up in power, for example, which makes some of these athletic things somewhat easier, like more power for me leads to more forward motion through the jhanas. It would just be in the first, like, no, we're just shifting to the second. And so more powerful me, for me, tends to lead to more rapid access. It's faster to get there, but that doesn't lead to things lasting for as long. I've often wondered if this is also physiologic, because that's been my practice basically since the beginning. And so I wonder if there aren't these different tendencies, whereas, like Bill Hamilton was more, by his reports, he would slow down and steady and do these long jhanic and then shift to the next one, and long jhana and shift to the next one, whereas I feel this mind pulling to the higher stuff with more ease, as just something it seems to physiologically do. There's

not the sense of craving about it. There's just the sense of, yeah, we're done with that, this next one is where it's going. It seems mechanical, or something, and I wonder if there's this range. I see people reporting a range like this, and there seem to be kind of different personality styles, and that was even reported back in the day. If you look at Sariputta versus Moggallana, they clearly had very different styles and just sort of intrinsic personality flavors to their practice. Yes, yes

Thoughts? Do you see a range in your colleagues in terms of when they attempt to do this, what they get? Yeah, I think for them, I can't speak for them, but from what I've heard, in terms of their experiences, they too are able to get into certain jhanas very easily. So some are actually more inclined to a certain kind of jhana. Some are more inclined to getting into the fourth jhana, or some are more pulled towards getting into infinite consciousness, or some just enjoy staying in the plane of nothingness and then are able to start from there, and so on. So I think there is something to be said about different kinds of personality profiles, as we understand it. Sorry, put there was a little bit more analytical, a little bit more logical

And so he had the insights while he was in jhana, and then you have someone like Moggallana who was getting into jhanas but was more feeling oriented. If you're more into how, what is the flavor of that jhana, what is the flavor of that experience, and hence being able to develop psychic faculties. I think when we talk about psychic faculties, you see some who are more sensitive, let's say, to emotions and other people's feelings, and more empathetic, and those kinds of personality profiles are able to develop psychic faculties more than, let's say, the analytical or the logical. At least that has been my experience with what I know to have these faculties.

You've touched on something there, Delson, which is psychic faculties and powers. And actually I am very tempted to suggest to the both of you that we meet again to discuss that topic in particular, because actually we're focusing right now on the four path model, and I think that's very, very good. But both of you have very interesting experiences, contrasting and overlapping, in the fields of the powers, in the fields of where these sorts of deep takes of concentration can go, city and so on. So that's perhaps something I'll try to petition you both for at a later date. Is there anything more to say about nirodha samapatti before we move on to discussing arahantship? Yes, and the curious thing was that I actually find that sometimes resolution training was not a friend when it came to my practice. It's interesting, I found adhitthana training, particularly with regard to duration, sort of vexing, and adhitthanas themselves made it less likely they would get into nirodha samapatti, and even if I made them at the beginning.

of the sit or even before the sit started, then there would be something of that residue that sort of could make the system a little bit something-ish, a little less likely to get into it. Whereas I found if I just, the less I did, the more likely it was to occur. So if I, if I literally, the most likely is if at the beginning of the sit I just go, we're going to attend to nirodha, and then just let that go, and let it just literally, just entirely out of the way, let the system do what it does, was by far the most likely for it to occur at all, much less anything to do with duration.

And the only time I attained to any of what I'm quite sure is significant duration, again, about 25 minutes, which is, again, not that long, and I know this because of some things about the clocks and setup and other stuff, but was some external time. There was no sense of time during the thing. You're just gone. And so it was actually almost on a lark. I hadn't done it in maybe 10 years. I can't remember how long it had been, something like that. Yeah, maybe 10 years, something like that at that time. And because I just wasn't interested and I was working as a doctor, and it was not a conducive state of mind to my hectic life.

And the afterglow in particular is not conducive to a hectic life. And so I had just noticed that the setup had occurred, and I was like, wow, that was, and I was just sitting, I had no goal for my practice at all, the set, and I thought, well, I just came out of the eighth jhana, and that felt like that right balance. I wonder if I could do nirodha samapatti now. And it was actually even a question. It wasn't even a request.

And then very shortly thereafter it happened and I got my longest duration ever. And so I often wonder if there might be different types in terms of, I have a lot of energy. That's one of my powers, but that can also be a problem. And trying to figure out how to, the brakes have been more interesting than how to find the gas pedal for me. And so I wonder if, given our different tendencies or sort of innate gifts, if people might need different techniques to be able to achieve duration, whereas more or less power, depending on what their inclination is, more or less energy, more or less force. I'm sort of known as being something of a forceful practitioner.

Most of my practice was figuring out how to back that down. And so it's just, I wonder if there isn't some individual variation and like trying to find the middle path, that balance, everybody might require somewhat different instructions what are your thoughts on that yeah that's that's a good that's a good point i think uh you know the way to look at it is uh in terms of the enlightenment factors because one of the things that we do is especially when you get into let's say the the realm of neither perception or non-perception you start to actually see that uh with mindfulness that there's too much energy and then you actually use sort of like micro dosing these enlightenment factors with some level of intention to counterbalance maybe too much energy or too little energy and so the understanding is for example if there's too much energy then you have a little bit more tranquility you relax a little bit more and you have a little more collectedness a little more equanimity or if the mind is having slot and torpor

then you bring up a little bit more joyful interest in the object, you bring up a little bit more of your investigative abilities, the investigation of principles and so on, and you're able to bring up a little bit more attention, a little bit more focus. That's a form of energy towards your object in meditation. So we kind of fine-tune these different parts of the enlightenment factors so that when they are in alignment, then there's just this into cessation into the experience itself. And when you say cessation, you mean nirodha samapatti, not fruition, right? Or both? Actually, I think for both, yes, that's right. It's interesting, this point, I think, because in the Indian systems and in the Tibetan system also, there are these ideas of typologies. In Tibetan, the three nepos, for example, and you're describing both of you somewhat classic typological descriptions, I would say, whether we think of the doshas or the three napas, something like that. You want to give an explanation for those who don't know this?

Sure. I'm speaking here, of course, as somewhat of a muggle, but I will. But let me say this also. I think another factor that is worth considering is Delson's extensive training from 16 in the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, in yogic states, in Kriya yoga states, that happened for quite a long time. And you attained, Delson, as you recounted in our interview together, really the end stages of those systems. And that's remarkable.

It's remarkable to what you're both discussing now, as casualists one discusses anything over a cup of coffee, is remarkable. These are the paths, the nirodha samapatti. I think it's a small club, and Delson, you yourself also claim to have gone all the way to the end of the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali in terms of those samadhi states, and to have gone all the way up the Kriya yoga systems, and no less than three different lineages. So that sort of prior training may, I think, or I don't know, actually let me not say I think that. The question that comes to my mind is if that has some sort of effect. But as for the three nepos or the doshas,

In the Tibetan system they have those three different, if you want humors, they call them, often, that we're all constituted of, but we also, they can manifest in sort of as typologies: lung, which is the vata or the airy type; tripa, which is the bile, the sort of more, if you want, energetic, fiery, forceful type, that sort of thing; or the bekan, or the phlegm, as maybe we could translate it like that, a more, should we say, mellow

stable sort of person. So that's very painting in very broad brushes, but I think that somewhat maps onto the doshas, or I think maybe even it's perhaps the same thing. And of course in those traditional systems these typologies are used to designate treatment options. Actually, it affects even pathology: what are you more prone to experiencing, and so on. It affects, of course, your personality type, but when you start to think about pathology, it starts to manifest or become relevant there. It starts to become relevant in terms of treatment types or lifestyle decisions or even dietary choices for optimal health, and so on and so forth. And certainly it seems meditational techniques, fasting regimes, chulan regimes, which is

rasayana regimes and so on are all also, if you want, coded to your particular typology, or there's an influence there. And indeed the meditation techniques you take, that you do, certain types are more prone to the samadhi path, certain types perhaps more prone to the nejang or the energetic yoga path, etc. Other types may be more prone to the analytical path or practices, and they're prescribed somewhat with reference to these typologies. So it's not, if we go back now to doctrine, if we go back to cultural references, this discussion, I think, is not unprecedented. There's a precedent for this in the texts. Do you agree? Yeah, I would say so, because if you think about it, in the suttas the Buddha has different kinds of meditation subjects, or let's say objects of meditation, for different kinds of personalities and different kinds of mind. For example, you have the speculative mind, and so what is given or prescribed, let's say, is mindfulness of breathing. You have a mind that is more aversive or

conducive towards hate, and so what is prescribed is loving kindness meditation. You have a mind that has inclination towards being a little more, let's say, attached or oriented towards lust and things related to the body, and so you prescribe that person an asubha practice. So different inclinations require different kinds of meditation subjects. Yeah, I very much appreciate all those points of view by both of you. Thank you. And you find that text in the commentaries in particular, where they have these personality typing systems that nobody likes. So are you greedy, hateful, or ignorant, right? Or some combination thereof? This is not going to work with our give-trophies-for-just-showing-up kind of culture, but if one is willing to be a little self-critical in the ordinary sense and go, well, maybe I have one of these qualities, I think there was little question that I was one of the more hateful or aversive types, right? So my mind was way more inclined to just shred reality than it was interested in having pleasure or peace or anything hold its attention.

That was just my inclination. I later had to counterbalance that with a bunch of jhana training and loving kindness and the other brahmaviharas, which, again, it's everybody who just mentions loving kindness, but I actually think the other three are very, very important and highly neglected, just to put in that plug for the rest of them, or at least that's what I've noticed from my own practice. And so I had to go back and fill that in. And so I clearly sort of led through strength early on.

But something of the marks or karma or residue of my wiring has still clearly remained, and so, and so, and that, again, as we see in the old texts, we notice that. But it's interesting to notice that I think a lot of the traditions, when I think about the traditions arguing with each other these days, I actually see a lot of that. I was going back and reviewing Mahasi Sayadaw's works for a conversation I recently did with Damarato, the view guru Steve, and I was thinking about it from a type point of view. He was clearly an aversive type, right? And then there was just, whereas, just disinterest in a lot of stuff, and yeah, he could appreciate jhana, but it always seemed kind of like an afterthought, whereas just seeing the true nature of phenomena disappearing and disappearing and disappearing gets mentioned again and again and again, and I think that has that aversive quality. And I think that often, I think our inclination to which tribe we fight for, which dogma we adhere to, is often based on our own personality types and attachment styles as well.

That's the other thing I've been seeing a lot. People have various attachment styles, sort of stably attached versus anxious or avoidant attachment styles. And the more I start looking through those lenses, the more I just see people picking their favorite tradition or their favorite teacher or their favorite style. And it's a lot based on their own psychological conditioning and or makeup and or attachment style. And so I'm very glad that I actually got to sit with a range of people who had all these different styles. And I think that really helped to round me out, like sitting with Sharda or sitting with Bhante Gunaratana

that had different qualities than, say, Christopher Titmuss, who was more of a sort of fiery, passionate kind of a teacher. And so I'll just put that out there and see what y'all's thoughts are on that. Well, we see the same thing in sports. To speculate further on this idea, of course, you could say, well, weight training makes you stocky and produces a body type. Competitive weight trainers are the evidence of that. Or perhaps certain people with certain body types are predisposed physically, in terms of their physical makeup, to success in different sports. So it's a chicken and egg situation, which is it? It seems perhaps at the elite level, typology does seem to perhaps play a large part.

But interestingly enough, the three napas, as I mentioned there before, and once again, the caveat, I'm doing this as a muggle, are associated with the three poisons. So the wind type, the lung type is to do with greed. The treeper type, the more forceful type is associated with anger. And the beckon type is associated with ignorance. In that sense, so it's curious, as we're speculating about these things, that there are, I think, some precedents, in the past, thinkers and cultures have looked at what do you think Nelson? Yeah, I just want to add, you know, I am familiar with the doshas that you were talking about with regards to vata, kapha and pitta, as they're known in Sanskrit, and I did have some fair understanding of ayurveda. And when I was always going through these diagnoses in ayurveda, what I noticed was you can also sort of go from one type to a different type depending upon your life journey, depending upon choices you make, depending upon

things you encounter. So I would say it's not necessarily fixed either, and it is transient, and it's dependent upon a lot of things that happen in terms of your emotional makeup, and things in your environment, and different kinds of situations that create these kinds of states of being or doshas. So, for example, I actually went from, let's say, being a kapha type, that is to say, being the more mellow type, to being the vata type, which is more airy and, you know, cerebral and that kind of stuff. And then I also went into being pitta, being fiery and aversive, and so on and so forth. So I think these things, just like impermanence, tell us, they're always transient, they're always going to be in flux.

That's fascinating. I'm aware of the time. Let's talk a bit about our hardship, shall we? We've done one, we've done two, we've done three, let's do four. So what can we say about that in terms of perhaps what your own experiences of that are? You know, we've done that for all the past so far, and also what one has observed perhaps broadly or anecdotally, and also certainly doctrinally, is also, I think, relevant here.

Maybe we take it topic by topic. So, one of the... I'll start with agency, right? Because of the components that make up a sense of a self, agency, the notion that I am doing, that I have a will that stands outside of causality, that I am making decisions, that, yeah, the world has some influence on it, but really there's still this residual sense of a person, a separate thing that is stable and that is controlling or doing. It was one of the more pernicious things. And being able to see the stream of intentions automatically, it's not just perception, it's also fundamental, like immediate interpretation.

Like, there's the sense of baseline intentions. Of course, intentions are not a self. Like, of course, they're just a stream of things that happen. And yes, actions seem to follow them. And of course, they're just immediate, like, transient, changing things. How could this little stream of things that are so subtle, people have a hard time even noticing them in practice? Right? This is one of the tricky things to point out. Hey, can you notice the subtle intention stream that goes along with any action and plans the next little micro movement, plans the next little micro thought, plans the next little micro syllable? And it's sort of this little, almost like sewing needle, incredibly subtle monitoring process that just subtly is before, rather than the mental impressions, which are just subtly after. And the sort of triplicate

iterative thing. Like, to notice that, to take that as a self, now, is impossible. Right? It's impossible, it's ridiculous. The fact that this subtle little thing was able to stay in the sense that it was actually a stable thing is ridiculous. Like, how it seems a miracle that was even possible. So I'm going to stop just with agency and go with that one. What are your thoughts on that? Yeah, when you talk about agency, just to make sure that I'm clear on this, are you talking about in reference to

mana, or you're talking in reference to conceit, or just agency in general? So, conceit is a funny one. We should talk about that. The notion that I am a true stable permanent thing, that's one of the aspects of conceit. So I think conceit has a number of aspects. I think the notion that one is an agent, that the process of intention, the intention stream, truly is, in some ways, if not who one is, then at least a part of who one is, in some kind of moving way. Sometimes our intentions seem to be us, and sometimes they don't seem to be us. Before, and then after, they're just all just what's happening. Right? So it's just all immediate causal occurrence, you know, sensate occurrence. Right? So there was the before and after. So that's what I mean when I, and but for me that's funny, because conceit is broken up into a few different categories and has these different aspects.

So it's the sense that there is a doer, that there is a true agent that stands outside and has a will, this volitional formation, that there are these things that are sectioned out by ignorance as having a volitional capacity and as a stable fixed thing, right? And based on that, you get other things, like the notion that, based on now that we think there's this fixed thing, then this fixed thing is not only acting, but, with ignorance, there's the sense it is observing. So there's the sense of observer, the sense of subjectness, that some of these sensations here actually are observing some of these sensations here, and which sensations are chosen as being the observer and observed seem to move around until suddenly it was just sensations in the room or whatever.

So there's the before and there's the afterwards, before some of the sensations always seemed to be sectioned out as being a separate referencey pointy thing. And after, there was no sense that that was happening at all. But there's the perception of which sensations used to be making that process up, and the perception of how perspective seems to be built into eyes and ears and things, in some kind of way that seemed to be creating this illusion that there really was a separate watcher, a separate knower, a separate observing thing.

And then, to me, conceit also has this quality of the be-er, not as in a PBR, but as in, perhaps Blue Ribbon, for those who don't know the lingo, a be-er, but a be-er as in there is a stable thing, right, that somehow consciousness is stable, or space is stable, or personality is stable, or habits are stable, or something is stable in this, rather than an ongoing flow of transient stuff, that there has to be a luminous super space or a something must be the same and continuous, not discrete and separate, not in totally immersively interdependent

and before there was that sense on all three fronts that there was an actor, an agent, a doer, a be-er, a knower, or something, right? And then afterwards there was literally just changing phenomena, and there was no other option for any other understanding. It seems absurd that there could have been any other interpretation really. It's miraculous. The illusion is able to sustain itself with such fervency for so many years in the face of all available information, right? It's ridiculous. So those are some of the things about conceit. But, and actually I like most of the fourth path criteria, which the other ones would be attachment to formless states, right, thinking they are one or one is them or one can control them, or that these are a refuge or could really constitute a stable something that would be a salvation or something, right?

It's obviously ridiculous. And then the one we're going to disagree a little bit about is restlessness and worry. So this is where we're going to have some controversy. I think we're on board with all the others. But the sense of restlessness and worry. It's interesting, all the others I agree with, but to say no restlessness ever, I push back against that one. No worry ever, I push back against that one. Is it very changed? Is it very sometimes subtle? Is the experience of it a very small portion of the room? But to say there's never any anxiety or never any stress about anything or, in the face of, I've had kidney stones and stuff, there was some stress there.

But kidney stones, let's just say, make me restless. I rise on the floor like an alligator with a spear out of its back when a bad one hits. That's just what this body does. To say there's no fear of that or no restlessness in the face of that as an immediate experience seems disingenuous to me. And so that's the one where I think we're going to have a little disagreement. All right, what are your thoughts? The way I see conceit is it's really the basis for the other three, setting aside ignorance. So what I'm saying, as I understand it, is that the restlessness, the attachment to a form realm, and the attachment to a formless state, these are all dependent upon conceit, the sense of the doer, the sense of the being, as you said.

And the way I see conceit is really that there's some kind of personal investment in it, that there's some kind of stake in it, that there's some kind of expectation from it, that there's some kind of idea that this is going to affect a sense of me, a sense of myself, a sense of being. But the way I see the eradication of conceit is that there is no longer any kind of personal investment in something, there's no longer any kind of expectation of a certain kind of outcome, even though whatever actions you're doing, it's just a flow of actions, it's just a flow of sensory information, it's just a flow of contact, feeling and perception.

And so by that understanding, I would say that if that conceit is eradicated, then there is no longer a personal investment in wanting to be in a state, uh, in a luminous form state, or to be in a formless state. And then with regards to restlessness and anxiety, or anxiety and worry, that would stem from some kind of, as I see it, some kind of personal investment there, some kind of sense of this is affecting a me here, this is affecting that sense of self that's identifying with the experience of whatever that might be. So I would say that if conceit is destroyed then there won't be those three. Yeah, and again, this is the sort of disagreement of outcomes, and then the question some of the audience are probably asking is about fine points of things. If you were suddenly mugged in an alley and someone punched you in the face and put a knife to your neck, or to the neck of a dear friend or something, would there be any change in heart rate?

Would there be any change in stress chemicals? Would there be adrenaline that got released? Would you be measurably stronger? Would your vision narrow? Could you measure sympathetic pupillary responses, like vision changes, to be able to meet a threat from a mammalian point of view? Would any of those reactions occur, and if so, what does that argue for? So, for example, or those kinds of things, what would that mean from a mammalian, sort of real-world, rubber-meets-the-road point of view? For example, have you had any experiences

that might cause some sort of stressful situation that you could relate to, since you, whatever happened to you happened to you, and if there have been any things that kind of push the limits, and how did they perform? Or could you measure, for example, no, the heart rate does not change at all in response to any stimulus, there is no reaction, there's no increased strength, there's never sweating in response to something challenging, there's utterly cut off at the level of physiology? For example, or there's still physiological reactions and maybe sensations somewhere in the body that might indicate a stress response, but they're not identified with, and they're just seen as little things that happen to be happening as a natural part of the causal unfolding of what a mammal does in certain situations.

Yeah, well, for one, I think it would be very interesting, just as a side note, to be able to see if somebody is claiming that there is the eradication of conceit. We include that as part of, let's say, that scientific experiment, because that would be an interesting thing to see. But having said that, the way I see it is there will still be some kind of physiological response to some kind of stimulus or to some kind of stimuli, in the sense that there will be, let's say, you put your hand on the hot stove, there will be some kind of reflex to experience that pain and then let go of that hot stove, or whatever it might be. So I think on a physiological level there will still be some kind of response.

But let's say on the subjective experience, the mental experience, there won't be any further identification with it. And the reason I say that, I'm using, let's say, going back to the suttas, using the idea of the two darts or the two arrows, where somebody does experience pain, somebody does experience some kind of bodily discomfort, but they don't identify with it subjectively on the mental plane. So there's no mental suffering ascribed to that physical pain. And I wonder about things like, yeah, thank you for that answer, that's interesting, and I wonder about things like when the Buddha's last days, somewhere in that sutra towards the beginning, it gets food poisoning or ischemic bowel or something, some bad intestinal malady is going on. For various debates about what it might be, was it truly food poisoning or ischemia or something? Something horrible is going on in the Buddha's abdomen, and there's some line in there somewhere, which I've seen translated various ways, but it's something like, even in the deepest jhanas I can find no relief from the suffering.

And again I see it translated various ways, and I think it puts up something of a... it's interesting to see the Buddha try to get into jhanas to get away from it, and that being something that makes me go hmm, sort of humanize this a little bit. And also the sense of the recognition of what suffering is, that there's an aspect of suffering that is simply having been born, right? I agree with you that Majjhima Nikaya 111 is one of my favorite suttas, but I think it's 121, the shorter discourse on voidness, is one of my other favorites, and these are probably a little bit later because they have that analytical quality to them, for those who like to pin the tail on the earliest sutra game. But the sense of greed is eliminated in me, or hatred is eliminated in me, or ignorance is eliminated in me, but there remains that suffering, conditioned by birth and just being alive.

And so that a mammal might have some physiological or even planning reactions. There might be thoughts that arise: wait, perhaps I should not put my hand on the stove next time, or wait, perhaps I should run like hell away from that obvious threat to the life and limb of this person, or whatever it is, or wow, didn't it just suck that someone just did whatever they just did, right? Or hmm, perhaps the climate change thing is real and maybe we should give that some careful consideration. These are interesting debates about what is just ordinary compassion

and what is fear doing, what fear wisely does, led me to considerations of the Vajrayana critiques of the Theravada. And the Vajrayana critiques of the Theravada, I have a friend who is very familiar with my work, who said, "You seem to have gotten Vajrayana realizations from Theravadan practices." And what they meant by that was, you still seem to have emotions, but there does seem to be some transformation of them, not that I claim anything like emotional perfection, but that there is something that fear seems to work better, it seems to lead to better responses. It doesn't need to lead to paralysis and rumination, but it seems to lead to a lot of action that seems to be effective, or hopefully tries to be effective at least within the limits of the knowledge of this mammal and available resources and conditioning. And so where there are these skillful aspects to fear and worry and concern, and exactly where compassion

ends and fear begins, where does compassion end and needless suffering begin, where does concern for others and their welfare and worry begin? These are questions that I think require a little lot of nuance, and I'll just sort of put that as a frame. What are your thoughts on those topics and issues? Yeah, I think there's something to be said about, let's say, we talk about the fourth path. I would say that such a person who claims the fourth path would have a mindset that is attuned to compassion, that is naturally compassionate. That would be what I would put forward, is the idea that they do understand that being suffered, whether it's mental suffering or physical suffering. So I think there's something to be said that the mind learns what is painful and what is pleasant, and there will be responses to what is painful and what is pleasant.

But there won't be further pushback of craving and aversion in the form of, like, oh, I, I don't know why this happened. There won't be any secondary reactions that fire up the mind in a way that causes further craving. So in other words, there won't be the initial reaction itself to that stimuli might be either what might seem to be in a painful manner or a pleasant manner, but that in itself I don't see as being indicative of a person identifying with the experience. It's just a no, it's a reflex, like using the analogy of a person putting their hand on the hot stove. It's just a reflex of the physiology to

Bring it up, bring the hand up now. When we talk about things like, let's say, issues that we see in the world, and in terms of what seems to be matters of differences of opinion, for example climate change, anything else that could be up for debate in social circles, I think there's something to be said about using skillful means to understand what seems to be most suited to being wholesome and conducive to the reduction of suffering. That could be the reduction of one's own physiological and physical suffering. And I put forth the idea that in the case of someone who does claim to have attained the fourth path

that there won't be any more mental suffering, and so if there are cases where one is met with conflict and differences of opinion and so on and so forth, they will put forward what they understand to be their understanding of reality. By no means would I say that somebody with the fourth attainment would have omniscience, you know, would be able to be completely aware and understand all of reality all at the same time, and therefore as an objective understanding of reality. So there will still be some subjective understanding. Their knowledge and their perspective will still be limited, but they won't have, I believe, a limit, a personal investment in that perspective anymore. So whatever seems to be conducive towards the wholesome, whatever seems to be conducive for the benefit of oneself, if it makes sense, or for the benefit of everybody, that mind would probably incline towards that. All right, thank you. And I also raised a curious case of Channa. Are you familiar with Channa?

Channa is the arahant who killed himself. So this is the one who used the knife, as the phrase goes, but it means killed himself. There are people who debate that, but I think it's quite clear from the context of what Channa did. And for those not familiar with the story, it's one of the more interesting ones in the canon, where I'm going to summarize, but essentially a monk comes to visit Channa, who appears to have attained the fourth path, and says, how are you? And Channa says, I'm very ill and in tremendous pain, and I'm going to kill myself with a knife, basically. I'm paraphrasing slightly.

And then does. And the person goes back to the Buddha and says, Buddha, what do you think of this? This would seem like aversion to pain or something. And the Buddha, curious thing, there's no suffering in that. Very interesting thing. And so I think the word suffering can mean a lot of different things, and from an ordinary point of view this springs into the starkest relief.

Where are the lines between ordinary compassion for the being who apparently had some terminal illness, it seems, and was in tremendous pain from it? It's not really specified what it is, if I recall. And then it's like, there's no, you know, sees that they think the wisdom is to just end this. There's no value in this suffering. This isn't helping, this isn't beneficial, and perhaps it's a purely wise act. And this brings up issues that are very deep to the religions and to ethics and everything: should suicide be legal, or is it ethical to ever kill oneself, and what's the state of mind? And even from a Buddhist point of view, typically suicide was seen as bringing horrendous karma and just being a terribly bad action, right?

So this was often thought, and then yet the Buddha seems to make such a curious exception in this case and says there's no suffering in that, and that the mind of an arahant might be simultaneously so clear about what the suffering was and the remedy for it, but yet not attached to it, and see it just as the natural unfolding of whatever is going on, and yet acknowledging the physical suffering of birth, right, that there is this mortal body, and it plays right on this fine line of all of the ideals of exactly what this might lead to. So I'll just put it back to you: what are your thoughts on that sutta? Yeah, I think I've read that sutta, and there's a couple of other suttas in which, yeah, there are other monks like that. There's a few others. The one that I'm reminded of is Vakkali, yeah, the Vakkali sutta, and it's a very curious set of suttas, and I've never been able to really

reconcile them. I would only say, and this could be from the commentary or tradition, that it's quite possible, and I might be mistaken about Channa, but it's quite possible, because I'm using the example of Vakkali, that he was not yet an arahant, and he had this experience of wanting to end that suffering, that physical pain, the terminal illness, whatever it was. But in the case of Vakkali, he wanted to see the Buddha one last time. And the Buddha said, you know, what's the point of seeing me? Those who see the Dhamma see me. And he gave him a talk, and that allowed him to get some level of insight.

And the understanding is just as he, let's say, drew the knife and slit his wrist or slit his throat at that point in time, just after he attained arahatship. So I'm kind of not clear on the specifics of that. All right. I've heard that explanation of it. It's interesting. As an ER doctor, I've seen a lot of people have various relationships to ending their own lives in the face of incredibly painful and horrible terminal conditions. And there are definitely cases in which I can fully appreciate the logic and choice that someone made to say there's no benefit left in this.

This is just pain. There's no, and that's how, is that helping? And so yeah, go ahead, sorry. Yeah. And so, just recognizing that I've seen a lot of that and actually been a lot a part of a lot of those decisions and conversations. And so, having had a lot of exposure to death and pain of suffering in my other job, and sometimes even in my own life with some very painful things, then I can appreciate how a mind might go, this is just a problem, there's no benefit in this, the better course of valor is to end that. And I don't want to say I know for any particular listener or any particular situation that is 100% right, but I definitely understand the logic of it. So what are your thoughts on that? Yeah, I definitely understand the logic as well, and I think there might be certain nuances here. For example, I would just give one example of somebody who might be on life support, and it's quite possible that while it is continuing their life, it's also prolonging their illness and prolonging their suffering, so

maybe the idea there would be to put them, take them off of life support, so that they have a natural death. But I think it's on a case-by-case basis, and like you, I can appreciate and understand, not necessarily on an experiential level, but able to understand why that kind of thought process arises because of the innate suffering. So, you know, I think it should be on a personalized case-by-case basis. But could you imagine an arahant deciding to end their own life because the physical pain of their body was too extreme? For example, someone you think of as an arahant by your criteria? I would say no. I would say no.

The reason is because I think if there is still some kind of pain and suffering and an identification with that suffering, then that person or that mind still has some level of attachment to that pain. I'm not saying that that person should continue on with that pain. I'm just saying that it would be a way for the mind of an arahant to be able to perceive that pain as being just pain, and therefore not being necessarily affected by it in the same way as somebody who is not in our experience.

I agree with the second half of that, of pain being just pain, and simply where it is and simply what it is, simply experiencing itself in the location where it occurred and being nothing more, in some ways. But there is the physiology of pain that does affect the body, because it is a mammal and it has built-in physiological responses to pain, and there is the stress of that. And there is also, I still think, the Buddha, when he talked about suffering and mentioned birth and death and old age, sickness, lamentation, pain, grief and despair, et cetera, as being in his intrinsic definition of suffering, I still see something of that as being there. And I see further evidence, and say, you know, the Majjhima Nikaya 121 and other places when I read the stories.

And so that's interesting. So we have slightly different views on this, and that's okay. I can totally respect your views, and it'll be interesting to see, as we both get older, if those views change, right? I look forward to a long dialogue of various iterations or potentially changes in those points of view and seeing how that holds up over time and years and all of that. How old are you now?

I am now 31. Cool. That's a great time in life. Nice. Steve, what are your thoughts? Well, I have many thoughts. I'm totally blown away, really, by the collegial nature of this conversation, but without sacrificing rigor. You've disagreed, and you've agreed, and you've done so with rigor and detail, but in a collegial way, and I think that's not common in these sorts of topics, and I'm very impressed by that. I'm also very impressed. I've been thinking, gosh, I need to put an oxygen mask on, this altitude, these attainments, the dusty end of the path, as we call it. You know, in guitar playing, they have the dusty end of the fretboard, which is at the very, very top where you don't go very often.

We've definitely been at the dusty end here. Remarkable. Is there anything more to discuss on our arahatship now, or should we adjourn? And then I can perhaps petition you for a sequel. This has been delightful. I feel satisfied. I am delighted and satisfied as well. Okay, well, on that pun, let's end it here. Once again, thank you both very much, Daniel Ingram and Delson Armstrong. Thank you. Thank you so much. It's been delightful. Really enjoyed it. Thank you. Thank you for listening to another Guru Viking podcast. For more interviews like these, as well as articles, videos, and guided meditations,