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

As to the rest of integration, well, if we have insights to integrate, it just seems to happen. That’s about the best I can do. Life happens as before, and so it goes. We grow, we learn, we get sick and we die. To quote a song from a Bogart movie, “The fundamental things apply as time goes by.” Go and read some extensive book on the subject and tell me whether or not it basically said the same thing while using a whole lot more words to do so. Still, such books can be helpful.

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33.IT IS POSSIBLE!

So why am I mentioning all of these states and stages that are thought by many to be largely mythical and unattainable? Because they are absolutely otherwise, that’s why. People do attain these states today, though they tend to only talk about them to their teachers and to close friends who have enough experience in this stuff to understand and not have odd reactions to these disclosures. I assure you that I wouldn’t have bothered writing all of this if I didn’t think that it was possible for those reading this book to master this stuff.

A friend of mine was on a retreat in Burma and had attained to second path as confirmed by U Pandita. He was finally done with his retreat and was taken to the airport by one of the people who helped to run the monastery, who incidentally was a stream enterer. As my friend was leaving, he yelled to him across the terminal, “Come back for number three!” meaning, “Come back and attain third path!” Note the many ways in which what underlies this statement differs from the paradigm you would likely find in your basic Western Buddhist.

First, most Western Buddhists don’t really believe that after a few months of good practice you could get enlightened or more

enlightened. They do not believe it is simply a matter of following simple instructions, moving through the clearly defined insights and tagging a path. In fact, I often tell this story to Western Buddhists, many of whom have been on numerous insight retreats lead by teachers trained by the best Burmese masters, and they say things like, “What do you mean, ‘third path’?” It makes me want to scream when they don’t even know the basic dogma of enlightenment, much less anything practical about it. Most Western teachers wouldn’t have the guts to stand up and say, “Yeah, he did it, he got second path” (assuming they would even been in a position to evaluate such a person’s practice).

Even if they did, it would likely be a huge, taboo secret. Here’s my point: it can be done, it is done, it can be done, and there are people who can help you do it!

Practice, practice, practice! This is the big difference between those who are merely into giving lip service to Buddhism and those who really get what the old boy was talking about. Go on retreats and actually

It is Possible!

follow the instructions to the letter all day long. Find people who know how it is done and hang out with them. Keep it simple. Avoid magical thinking and abandoning common sense.

The simple fact that you have read this book means that the ball is now in your court. There is more than enough information presented here on straightforward techniques that have a great track record of performing as advertised. As a large and wise chef in a gourmet seafood restaurant once said to me, “I have two words for you: perseverance furthers.”

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34.MORE ON THE “MUSHROOM FACTOR”*

One of the reasons that more people who make progress do not talk about progress could be the fact that, as practice deepens, the exaggerated importance to the meditator of thoughts of “my

attainment,” “I am enlightened,” etc. gradually falls away and assumes its proper proportion, its proper place in things. However, this does not mean that such language cannot be used. While there may routinely be no good reasons to talk about attainments, or even good reasons not to, there is a long and glorious tradition of compassionate meditation masters and enlightened beings who braved the consequences and told the world that it could be done, that they had done it, and they were going to tell all of those who hadn’t how they could do it too. The results of this varied from founding major religions to being executed or both, but such are the caprices of reality.

It is interesting that Buddhism started out very much as a tradition in which those who were highly attained were often loudly proclaimed to be so by themselves and others with the specific details of their skills and understandings made clear. The motivation for this was that such individuals were valuable resources for others and this should be known for the benefit of all. This widespread cultural phenomenon of meditation masters being “out” is abundantly clear in the ancient texts, and occurs to varying degrees in Asian countries today.