What follows is a list of terms which may help readers contextualize some of my journal entries. It is not meant to be exhaustive nor necessarily, objectively accurate. Rather these are terms I am attempting to define in ways that have been relevant to my practice.
The Actualism Method - A fringe contemplative movement founded by a man named Richard in the 1990's. It posits a type of investigation which is said to lead to a state called "Actual Freedom" (AF for short), in which all emotional affect, societal conditioning, and animalistic instinct are eliminated. It became popular when Daniel Ingram and Tarin Greco began discussing it on the DhO.
Bodywork - Any contemplative work that focuses on the mind's relationship with the physicality or the body, and more specifically, its movement (i.e. Dhammarato's "watch the stillness," "watch the flow," or "hands and feet").
Concentration - The ability to calm and stabilize the mind, eventually leading into the Jhanas. Concentration is like a soup with many ingredients, including continuity of attention, stability of attention, rapture, mental quiet, patience, etc.
Gladdening The Mind - An exercise in which Piti is purposely fabricated. May be done through mental imaging, mental talk and/or working with the breath.
Jhana vs Nana (distinction between meditation states) - Embeddedness & Samatha (calm stability) lead to Jhana (Buddhist trance state). Disembeddedness & detached clarity lead to Nana (Insight Knowledge). These are two ends of a spectrum.
Mental Science - The school of New Age spirituality, founded by Ernest Holmes, which originally proposed the "law of attraction."
Nirodha Samapatti - What Daniel Ingram calls the "granddaddy of meditation attainments." A prolonged, complete shutdown of the conscious attention mechanism while some aspect of awareness remains 'turned on.' The hard version of this is one-in-a-million, even amongst advanced meditators.
Piti - The Pali word for joy. It can be used to refer to a range of conventional, positive emotions, or to more esoteric, rapturous effects that occur in meditation states. Whatever the usage, it can also be measured based on how deep and suffused it is into the mind-body. Furthermore, Piti can be accumulated by gladdening the mind.
Pragmatic Dharma - A movement started by Daniel Ingram and Kenneth Folk in reaction to what their teacher, Bill Hamilton, called the "Mushroom Factor" of American Buddhism: that modern, Western Buddhist teachers were treating their students like mushrooms (keeping them in the dark, and feeding them shit). The movement has primarily taken place on online forums, but has also involved in-person conferences, and is starting to seep into the mainstream with the help of folks like Dan Harris.
Removal of Distracting Thoughts - A technique straight out of the Pali Canon that involves bearing down on obsessive thoughts with the will. The goal is to do it so frequently that the brain rewires itself to stop obsessing.
Soft vs Hard (distinction between meditation states) - The level of intensity or pervasiveness of a meditation experience.
Substitution of Opposites - A description of many Pali Canon-based techniques which involve countering unskillful qualities by fabricating their skillful opposites. This training is core to Hinayana methodology. Examples include corpse meditation, rotting food meditation, gladdening the mind, etc.
Technical 1st Path (or just 1st Path) - The attainment that occurs after one, complete cycle of insight. Leaves a lasting, but very subtle imprint upon the mind. A major side effect of 1st Path is the ability to get into soft versions of the Formed Jhanas, on command.
Technical 2nd Path (or just 2nd Path) - The attainment that occurs after a second, complete cycle of insight (and after 1st Path Review phase). Has a more obviously liberating effect on the mind.
Technical 3rd Path - Occurs after a meditator goes through multiple cycles of insight such that she begins to see the emptiness of them, marking the beginning of understanding fractals. The technical 3rd Path cessation triggers the yogi's 3rd Review phase. Completed cycles between 2nd and 3rd supposedly do not trigger Review phases. Side effects of 3rd path include the ability to get into soft versions of the Formless Jhanas, Pureland Jhanas, and Nirodha Samapatti.
Technical 4th Path - A deepening and completing of the previous realization. It marks a permanent touching of non-duality, but may still be somewhat peripheral or intuitive. Many practitioners feel completely "done" with spiritual development at this point. The realization has to do with the relativity of all phenomena and experiences, and involves some completion of understanding at the Vipassana, vibratory, or attention-level of mind.
The Ten Fetter Model - The original, Buddhist measure of enlightenment: based on one's degree of freedom from a specific, finite set of mental ills. I believe this to be a map which measures the degree of integration of the 3 trainings, rather than a measure of the Wisdom training in an isolated way. Absence of an understanding of integration may help to explain both the extremes of Mushroom Culture, and Pragmatic Dharma culture.
The Three Characteristics - Of reality: Impermanence, Not-Self, and Unsatisfactoriness. Could be said to reflect Energy, God, and Love in other traditions.
The 3 Trainings - The 3 Main arenas of development in Buddhism are Morality, Concentration, and Wisdom.
Wisdom - The deep, intuitive knowing of things like the 3 Characteristics, Dependent Origination, Emptiness, the Five Aggregates, etc. Wisdom transformations involve physio-energetic change, as well as sensory-perceptual openings. Wisdom is the core axis of development across all of human mysticism.
The Actualism Method - A fringe contemplative movement founded by a man named Richard in the 1990's. It posits a type of investigation which is said to lead to a state called "Actual Freedom" (AF for short), in which all emotional affect, societal conditioning, and animalistic instinct are eliminated. It became popular when Daniel Ingram and Tarin Greco began discussing it on the DhO.
Anapanasati - Classical, Buddhist breathing meditation. It could be said to be a whole path (method and map) within itself, including many different investigations.
Bodywork - Any contemplative work that focuses on the mind's relationship with the physicality or the body, and more specifically, its movement (i.e. Dhammarato's "watch the stillness," "watch the flow," or "hands and feet").
Concentration - The ability to calm and stabilize the mind, eventually leading into the Jhanas. Concentration is like a soup with many ingredients, including continuity of attention, stability of attention, rapture, mental quiet, patience, etc.
Gladdening The Mind - An exercise in which Piti is purposely fabricated. May be done through mental imaging, mental talk and/or working with the breath.
Jhana vs Nana (distinction between meditation states) - Embeddedness & Samatha (calm stability) lead to Jhana (Buddhist trance state). Disembeddedness & detached clarity lead to Nana (Insight Knowledge). These are two ends of a spectrum.
Mental Science - The school of New Age spirituality, founded by Ernest Holmes, which originally proposed the "law of attraction."
Morality - Gaining life skills, perspectives, psycho-emotional healing, ego development, social action, conventional knowledge, etc. Morality is everything that takes place outside of meditation. Depending on the map and tradition, morality may or may not be discussed in a secular or isolated manner; some traditions measure awakening as a degree of synergistic integration between sensory-perceptual non-duality and morality.
Mudita - One of the 4 'Sublime Abodes' in Buddhist lore. Refers to a state/method in which one sympathetically resonates with the positive feelings of others, or shares one's own cache of Piti via joyful communication.
Piti - The Pali word for joy. It can be used to refer to a range of conventional, positive emotions, or to more esoteric, rapturous effects that occur in meditation states. Whatever the usage, it can also be measured based on how deep and suffused it is into the mind-body. Furthermore, Piti can be accumulated by gladdening the mind.
Pragmatic Dharma - A movement started by Daniel Ingram and Kenneth Folk in reaction to what their teacher, Bill Hamilton, called the "Mushroom Factor" of American Buddhism: that modern, Western Buddhist teachers were treating their students like mushrooms (keeping them in the dark, and feeding them shit). The movement has primarily taken place on online forums, but has also involved in-person conferences, and is starting to seep into the mainstream with the help of folks like Dan Harris.
Removal of Distracting Thoughts - A technique straight out of the Pali Canon that involves bearing down on obsessive thoughts with the will. The goal is to do it so frequently that the brain rewires itself to stop obsessing.
Soft vs Hard (distinction between meditation states) - The level of intensity or pervasiveness of a meditation experience.
Substitution of Opposites - A description of many Pali Canon-based techniques which involve countering unskillful qualities by fabricating their skillful opposites. This training is core to Hinayana methodology. Examples include corpse meditation, rotting food meditation, gladdening the mind, etc.
Technical 1st Path (or just 1st Path) - The attainment that occurs after one, complete cycle of insight. Leaves a lasting, but very subtle imprint upon the mind. A major side effect of 1st Path is the ability to get into soft versions of the Formed Jhanas, on command.
Technical 2nd Path (or just 2nd Path) - The attainment that occurs after a second, complete cycle of insight (and after 1st Path Review phase). Has a more obviously liberating effect on the mind.
Technical 3rd Path - Occurs after a meditator goes through multiple cycles of insight such that she begins to see the emptiness of them, marking the beginning of understanding fractals. The technical 3rd Path cessation triggers the yogi's 3rd Review phase. Completed cycles between 2nd and 3rd supposedly do not trigger Review phases. Side effects of 3rd path include the ability to get into soft versions of the Formless Jhanas, Pureland Jhanas, and Nirodha Samapatti.
Technical 4th Path - A deepening and completing of the previous realization. It marks a permanent touching of non-duality, but may still be somewhat peripheral or intuitive. Many practitioners feel completely "done" with spiritual development at this point. The realization has to do with the relativity of all phenomena and experiences, and involves some completion of understanding at the Vipassana, vibratory, or attention-level of mind.
The Ten Fetter Model - The original, Buddhist measure of enlightenment: based on one's degree of freedom from a specific, finite set of mental ills. I believe this to be a map which measures the degree of integration of the 3 trainings, rather than a measure of the Wisdom training in an isolated way. Absence of an understanding of integration may help to explain both the extremes of Mushroom Culture, and Pragmatic Dharma culture.
The Three Characteristics - Of reality: Impermanence, Not-Self, and Unsatisfactoriness. Could be said to reflect Energy, God, and Love in other traditions.
The 3 Trainings - The 3 Main arenas of development in Buddhism are Morality, Concentration, and Wisdom.
Wisdom - The deep, intuitive knowing of things like the 3 Characteristics, Dependent Origination, Emptiness, the Five Aggregates, etc. Wisdom transformations involve physio-energetic change, as well as sensory-perceptual openings. Wisdom is the core axis of development across all of human mysticism.
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