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I've come back to Herbert Benson's book THE BREAKOUT PRINCIPLE--also coming back to the relative importance of peak experiences. I think I got this generally right when I placed the stage of Clarity (inspiration) just beyond Appreciation (and mindfulness). I'm starting to really mentally GRASP how that relates to Nonconceptuality and why it is difficult to understand the vast qualitative differences between Clarity and Nonconceptuality.

There are two general critiques within the meditative community as a whole, concerning technique (if you're willing to look at things this way). The first is too passive and the second is too active. We see this clearly in the differences between Soto and Rinzai Zen. More recently, Soto has taken on many Rinzai techniques (like koans) and become more effective, more complete.

One premise I'm working with here is that ultimate truth (or THE ultimate Truth) is not meaningful. Meaning comes from relating. In Tibetan Buddhism, they speak of ultimate truth and conventional truth, which Wilber has called "the two truths doctrine". I have always had a problem with acting/speaking as if these are separate. But ultimate truth is not relative, which means not meaningful, which means, not packageable (in words). It is impossible to communicate because, in a sense, it doesn't move, it's already everywhere, so you can't bring it to someone. But you can help them break out of a conventional mindset or ignorance.

So I've been talking about the difference between freedom and liberation. We can liberate ourselves and help others liberate themselves. But freedom simply is. That simple being (Abiding) is easy, effortless. But getting to Abiding takes effort. Some traditions have emphasized the goal (peace, Abiding...) and others have emphasized the path (and its effort).

Early on, it is most effective to emphasize activity. Learn to concentrate, learn to intentionally relax, and learn meditation. Those skills are the base for peaks, inspiration, and mental-emotional clarity. To sustain a sense of mental-emotional clarity, we need consistently repeated or revisited moments of inspiration. As we experience these, the sense of clarity itself (rather than the ecstatic energy of the "psychic" levels) stands out as important (to anyone who continues on further). Many people don't experience consistent enough inspiration, and they remain with the amusement-park quality of the ecstasy rather than moving onto a predominance of clarity and its subtler bliss. Drugs encourage that stuckness as well as fragmentation of self-identity rather than a liberted self-identity.

DIfferent types of peaks must be actively sought. Benson lists different types. Because many people have taken inspiration to be ultimate in some way (just because it is exciting and liberating), many experienced meditators are rightly (to an extent) against listing types of peaks or focusing on actively seaking peaks. Partially, this is the case because many flashy gurus have only emphasized the ecstasy. Benson's list includes the peaks of: self-awareness, creativity, productivity, athleticism, rejuvenation, and transcendence. In the same way that I have emphasized different degrees of competence at early levels and a qualitative difference between early levels, Benson focuses here on experiences of high competence at those levels. Peaks of Creativity fit my first level (creativity/play/exposure). Peaks of Productivity and Athleticism fit my second level of Purpose. Peaks of Rejuvenation fit Relaxation. Self-awareness fits with mindful appreciation and flow/clarity. And peaks of transcendence actually fit with Nonconceptuality.

If we see this whole mess clearly, we can see that it is worth chasing peaks--not for the ecstasy, but--as moments of high competence at each level. As we become more competent at each level, we work more smoothly, freeing energy up for the subtler focus on higher levels while also practicing increasing subtlety. Pursuing peaks without a comprehensive grasp of how they fit in and what they mean means that we will tend to over-interpret their importance and under-interpret their applicability. We will act as if they are more important than they are but also get less out of them. Essentially, most peaks are not important by themselves, but they can become important when they are fed into the overall process towards increasing liberation and a clearer, more consistent experience of Abiding.

There need be nothing esoteric about describing this process. But there is a significant shift from Clarity to Nonconceptuality. As we de-emphasize inspiration and stick more with subtle bliss and the feeling of liberation, we increase the sense that we are all already liberated. But without a comprehensive and accurate understanding, we may get confused and caught up in wondering why people don't always act and feel already liberated. All the explanatory systems (karma, God, etc.) are more relative/less ultimate than the actual ultimate truth. So the explanations create certain problems, but we need an Understanding so we can allow for suffering, old age, and death in our life and the lives of others.

By relying on any explanation that includes suffering as an important motivator towards Nonconceptuality, we take suffering with us into Nonconceptuality. If we do not conceptually interrogate the idea of suffering as important, though, it becomes nearly impossible to dislodge suffering in toto without being somewhat avoidant, without retreating into transcendence to some extent. Or, if we acknowledge suffering in a different way, we get stuck at the level of bodhisattvas (Nonconceptuality) because we feel it would be unethical to become (Abiding) buddhas while others still suffer. By not becoming buddha, we existentially insist on retaining (attaching to and thereby maintaining) suffering. When this is the case, our best ideal can only be either an avoidant sort of nirvana or an unenlightened (bodhisattva-not-buddha) sort of compassion. We cannot actualize enlightenment without allowing the full suffering in and of the universe as it is. Besides the doctrinal misunderstangings of not being too active or too passive with one's meditation, this final message is one that bodhisattvas--in their unending but not infinite compassion--resist. The compassion fo buddhas, based in ultimate truth and experience and freedom is beyond Understanding but it is also beyond meaning itself. It cannot be understood or known as something other than me-everything. It cannot be said to be more subjective or objective in the least. And we cannot have faith in this ultimate state-stage-Way-BEING because we already always are this/that. We must finally give up faith to be who we are.