Mastering the Core Teachings of Buddha - An Unusually Hardcore Dharma Book

Now that I have presented the maps of the Progress of Insight, I will reiterate just a bit about how they help and why I went to all of that trouble. I will try to do this in chronological sequence and tie it in with what has been said in Part I.

The maps tell you clearly what you are looking for and explain exactly and precisely why you are looking for it, how that insight helps, and how that insight provides the ground for what follows. The same thing could be said of the concentration state maps. If the stages of insight didn’t tend to bring up all sorts of unusual raptures and produce such a wide range of potentially destabilizing emotional side effects, there would not be so much need for the maps. You could simply tell people to increase their perceptual abilities until they got enlightened, and they would likely have few difficulties in doing so by properly applying the techniques. However, the insight stages do tend to cause these sorts of effects, so the maps are very useful for keeping people on track in the face of them.

Remember long ago in the chapter called The Seven Factors of Enlightenment when I mentioned that the first factor was mindfulness and that this was really good for sorting out what is mind and what is body and when each is and isn't there? That is because the first insight you are looking for, the one that gets you in a position to see more deeply, is stage 1. Mind and Body. Get it? This stuff is not random or arbitrary. It is all clearly laid out in a way that helps and fits with reality.

Remember how I said in that chapter that one should try to

experience the intentions that precede actions and thoughts, as well as the mental impression or “consciousness” that follows all sensations?

That is the understanding in stage 2. Cause and Effect. Thus, mindfulness is the first factor of enlightenment because it leads directly to the first two classic insights into the truth of what is actually going on.

If you want insight into something, then looking into that aspect of things precisely is the best way to acquire that insight.

Once one has directly experienced these two insights, then the Three Characteristics begin to become obvious in stage 3. The Three Characteristics, which is exactly why the next factor of enlightenment is

How the Maps Help

called investigation of the truth, i.e. the Three Characteristics. Both the Seven Factors of Enlightenment and the insight maps tell you exactly what you are trying to understand and why. Their order is not arbitrary in the least.

You will not be able to understand the Three Characteristics directly without sorting out what is mind and what is body and the relationships between them. Without understanding the Three Characteristics, regardless of what you call them, you will not be able to go further and will not be able to get enlightened. The Buddha laid it all out step by step. While this may seem unromantic and perhaps even dry, it is also exceedingly practical and without a doubt the clearest presentation of exactly how to wake up that I have ever seen presented in any spiritual system, just so my biases are made perfectly clear. In short, these maps and techniques can be profoundly empowering.

Once the Three Characteristics begin to become clear, the mind naturally speeds up and becomes more powerful. This is because it finally begins to draw on its tremendous power to see things directly without processing them through thought. Anyone who has driven a car, played a video game or done just about anything else for that matter knows that you just have to do it, but if you tried to think about every little thing you were doing it would be impossible.

This increase in mental power due to non-conceptual and direct experience is related to the third factor of enlightenment, energy.

Energy may now even be blazing up and down one's spinal cord, the mind gets bright and alert, and soon energy is flowing naturally, as one begins to enter the early part of stage 4. The Arising and Passing Away.

Remember how this correlates with the second samatha jhana, where applied and sustained attention or effort are no longer needed? They just happen on their own to a large extent, and energy is naturally present. Thus, it all ties together.

The next factor of enlightenment is rapture, which comes to

predominate in the second vipassana jhana and the Arising and Passing Away just as it does in the second samatha jhana. Thus, all of the important advice about rapture given earlier applies to the insight maps in Part III. One is generally advised to avoid becoming a rapture or Kundalini-junkie in that stage, although I suppose if that is your primary 230

How the Maps Help

reason for meditating, it is certainly your right to do so. Just be wary of the inevitable crash.

During the mature Arising and Passing Away, as well as in