Mastering the Core Teachings of the Buddha: An Unusually Hardcore Dharma Book - Revised and Expanded Edition

by Daniel M. Ingram

The first understanding is that sensations are sensations, thoughts are thoughts, and this forms the basis of further inquiry. When the universal characteristics of these sensations begin to be seen, this represents growth in understanding. When the whole sense field is known directly and completely as it is, this can cause an entrance into Fruition through one of the Three Doors, and represents the first stage of awakening. When one appreciates the cycles of the process of awakening and has completed at least one more new progress cycle, this is the next stage. When one begins to appreciate the emptiness, luminosity, centerlessness, agentlessness, etc. of phenomena in real-time and this becomes the focus of practice rather than Fruition, this is the next stage. When the sense of the watcher, observer, subject, controller, doer, etc. is seen completely as it is and the knot of perception untangles, that simple, fundamental way of perceiving things is the next stage of awakening. When that untangling stays untangled, that is the next stage. As that understanding is integrated into our lives, that is the next phase, though it is more an ongoing process than a stage. The problem is that the traditions seem to want to make this understanding into so much more than it is, such as add ideals of emotional perfection onto this. There is some truth in the models dealing with emotions, but it has to do with things moving through faster and being seen more clearly. It does not have a...