{"id":1826,"date":"2014-05-08T20:23:52","date_gmt":"2014-05-09T02:23:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.maxmarmer.com\/?p=1826"},"modified":"2016-01-11T20:29:00","modified_gmt":"2016-01-12T02:29:00","slug":"qa-on-an-integral-critique-of-thomas-metzingers-talk-on-spirituality-intellectual-honesty","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.maxmarmer.com\/blog\/qa-on-an-integral-critique-of-thomas-metzingers-talk-on-spirituality-intellectual-honesty\/","title":{"rendered":"Highlighted Comments On “AN INTEGRAL CRITIQUE OF THOMAS METZINGER\u2019S TALK ON SPIRITUALITY & INTELLECTUAL HONESTY”"},"content":{"rendered":"

(Original Post Here<\/a>)<\/em><\/p>\n

Friend:\u00a0You’re obviously very smart, Max — perhaps brilliant — but I do have to point out that in the Buddhist traditions you refer to, it’s unusual for a student to simply assert that they have passed through all the various states of realization, up to and including non-dualism, without having those claims tested and checked by very seasoned meditators that have received dharma transmission in the lineage. Perhaps you have already; perhaps you yourself have already received dharma transmission, for all I know. Or perhaps you consider such a structure of authority irrelevant. The only reason why I mention it is out of concern for you. Without that sort of confirmation by members of the sangha, there’s always the possibility that you are deceiving yourself about your level of realization, even (or perhaps especially) if you can talk a great game. As the issue at hand is the Great Matter of Life and Death, as they say, those traditions, which have served and supported Buddhists for thousands of years, are not to be bypassed lightly. I’m hoping you have not only a community of people who “believe” in you, but a teacher who can help you see what you can’t, no matter how far you have advanced on the path.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

My Answer:<\/p>\n

Thanks for your thoughtful response. Pardon the delay, I was taking a few days off from mind engagement.<\/p>\n

I do believe awakening and spiritual practice is an important and timely topic to discuss both theoretically and phenomenologically, so I’m happy to dive a bit deeper.<\/p>\n

I’ll start off by saying I have pursued purification of mind and of awakening voraciously since as long as I can remember possessing agency – in hindsight metaphorically feeling as if I always knew where I was going: finding my way back to where I’d already been.<\/p>\n

But I pursued the path back up to awakening in a very non-traditional way, on par with the non-traditional approach I take in the rest of my life.<\/p>\n

As a teenager growing up in the western culture of San Francisco I was intrinsically attracted to self development practices such as Getting Things Done, Energy Management and Neuro Linguistic Programming. I now see the lessons I learned from these methodologies being strong corollaries to the preliminary practices in many forms of Buddhism, which trained attention, mindfulness, and body awareness.<\/p>\n

At the behest of a few of my close friends I attended the Landmark Forum this February. One of my greatest lessons from attending the seminar was perspective on my own path. In witnessing the struggles of so many as they told their stories at the mic in the front of the room, I saw 1) How clean a childhood I had, experiencing essentially no major traumas, and feeling unconditionally loved and protected by both of my parents 2) How by the time I began experiencing major traumas and set backs in life I had the psychological tools to deal with them, so that none of these experiences were sublimated and remanifested as limiting beliefs or shadow. Rather, I processes traumas and setbacks as they came, head on. Some took longer than others to work through, but I did not hide from any of them.<\/p>\n

When I was 20 I began finding my way to more Eastern rooted esoteric teachings, primarily through Don Riso, Ken Wilber, and David Deida, if I am recalling correctly. (Other virtual teachers later included Joseph Campbell, Andrew Cohen, Dan P. Brown and Adi Da).<\/p>\n

I worked my way through their systems of thought and diligently practiced much of what they preached. And when I reached the point of receiving their transcendental injunctions, each naturally occurring several months apart, I had soiled fertile ground to immediately pop into states that would seem dishonest to call anything but Satoris.<\/p>\n

The tumultuous nature of the entrepreneurial life I signed up for unfortunately led to a series of biological health problems that rendered my attained levels of awareness and insight unstable. In the words of one my mentors, “my biocomputer kept breaking”, limiting the expression of higher psychological states and structures of awareness and being. Only recently in 2014 have I made my self system fully grounded and stable enough to live into the awakening experiences I had that punctually began increasing some 3 years earlier.<\/p>\n

However, I have not had these awakening experiences confirmed by already confirmed enlightened masters for a few reasons: 1) aforementioned health problems and lack of time to find a teacher I trust 2) subjective confidence stemming from corroborative phenomenological experience with all I’ve read 3) intersubjective verification from peers on a similar path 4) distrust of the guru model for a) the inevitability of gurus projecting their shadows as well as their light on their students b) understanding Wilber’s insight that structures of consciousness significantly alter the interpretation of state experiences, and recognizing that most enlightened masters would likely not share my evolutionary, scientifically grounded interpretation of my awakening experiences c) the fact that we live in an extraordinarily unique time in human history where the insights of many enlightened teachers are just a mouse click away, if we know where to look. Making the guru-student relationships significantly less necessary. In contrast to the past, where to receive a master’s wisdom required prostrating yourself at his feet, and then toiling for years to prove your devotion before even beginning to receive his higher level dharma. An additional beauty of having so much wisdom and knowledge at one’s fingertips is the emergent feasibility of comparing teachers and teachings and finding the common patterns and insights across them. Which critically enables the filtering of each teacher’s idiosyncratic shadow, misdirection and garbage, and therefore would significantly accelerate development.<\/p>\n

So having said all that, I am fully open to the prospect that I’m significantly overrating the progress I believe I’ve made, as I’m aware overrating insight is quite a common occurrence in spiritual traditions.<\/p>\n

Which is why now that I have regained my health and have built more flexibility into my lifestyle, I am planning to sit with Dan P. Brown in retreat. As he is the teacher whose transmission seems most likely to resonate with me, due to his ongoing collaboration with Ken Wilber, and the references I have heard from peers of mine who are currently studying with him. His reputation as a “surgeon of consciousness, synthesizing nearly all of the great tibetan texts to develop the cleanest meditation maps around” being particularly resonant.<\/p>\n

I actually intended to go to this Dan Brown Retreat last week (http:\/\/www.esalen.org\/…\/pointing-out-way-tibetan…<\/a>), but was unfortunately wait listed. So I will hopefully attend another retreat of his later this year, with the intent of getting some kind of reality check on the stage of my practice, and backfilling it with many fundamentals I know I glossed over as I seem to have taken what the Buddhists would call the Sudden Path, rather than its more common Gradual counterpart.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(Original Post Here) Friend:\u00a0You’re obviously very smart, Max — perhaps brilliant — but I do have to point out that in the Buddhist traditions you refer to, it’s unusual for a student to simply assert that they have passed through all the various states of realization, up to and including non-dualism, without having those claims Continue Reading<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[43,42,16,15,29],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1826","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-meditation","category-my-personal-journey","category-philosophy","category-psychology","category-spirituality","cat-43-id","cat-42-id","cat-16-id","cat-15-id","cat-29-id"],"yoast_head":"\nHighlighted Comments On "AN INTEGRAL CRITIQUE OF THOMAS METZINGER\u2019S TALK ON SPIRITUALITY & INTELLECTUAL HONESTY" - 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