On Models of Wakefulness

Vincent Horn writes in his post "How you Approach Enlightenment and Why it Matters":

It’s often recognized by meditation teachers that the notion of enlightenment carries with it a whole host of misconceptions and unhelpful interpretations. In Mastering the Core Teachings of the Buddha, Theravada teacher Daniel Ingram writes about this at length in his section on the models of enlightenment. He describes and distinguishes between the many different models we have for what enlightenment bestows on the individual, including things having to do with emotional, physical, psychological, and spiritual perfection. He also points out how dangerous some of these models can be, as they do at least two things: First, they make enlightenment appear to be completely impossible as most of the models people have, and especially when you combine several of them, are largely unattainable. Secondly, they take the focus off of what enlightenment is really about, the realization of non-duality, or “those models having to do with eliminating or seeing through the sense that there is a fundamentally separate or continuous center-point, agent, watcher, doer, perceiver, subject, observer or similar entity.” These Non-Duality models, Daniel claims, are the only models that one can trust from the beginning of the path, until the very end.

Yes, music for my ears. Read the whole post.