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

by Daniel Ingram

Overview

The very idea that the teachings can be mastered will arouse controversy within Buddhist circles. Even so, Ingram insists that enlightenment is an attainable goal, once our fanciful notions of it are stripped away, and we have learned to use meditation as a method for examining reality rather than an opportunity to wallow in self-absorbed mind-noise. Ingram sets out concisely the difference between concentration-based and insight (vipassana) meditation; he provides example practices; and most importantly he presents detailed maps of the states of mind we are likely to encounter, and the stages we must negotiate as we move through clearly-defined cycles of insight. Its easy to feel overawed, at first, by Ingram's assurance and ease in the higher levels of consciousness, but consistently he writes as a down-to-earth and compassionate guide, and to the practitioner willing to commit themselves this is a glittering gift of a book.In this new edition of the bestselling book, the author rearranges, revises and expands upon the original material, as well as adding new sections that bring further clarity to his ideas.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781911597186
Publisher:	Aeon Books
Publication date:	06/06/2018
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	616
Sales rank:	757,563
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

Daniel Ingram is a leading proponent of Buddhism as a practical path to enlightenment in this lifetime. He has played a key role in keeping Buddhism vital and accessible while also grounded in the core teachings.

Read an Excerpt

CHAPTER 1

Introduction

If you have not yet read the Foreword and Warning, please do so now. The Buddhist path has often been called a "spiritual path", and this use of religious language can be very inspiring for some people. The Buddhist path can also be thought of in terms of a scientific experiment, a set of exercises that the Buddha and his followers have claimed lead to very specific, reproducible, verifiable effects, which are deemed not just worthwhile but liberative. Using this sort of practical, more scientifically oriented language can also be very inspiring for some people. However, as science doesn't often provide explicit emphases on the meaning and relevance of its findings to living humans with hearts and minds, language and concepts that can bridge that gap are often useful.

To inspire a broader audience, I will use both spiritual and practical language when discussing some of the elements concerning the Buddhist path. My preference, however, is generally for the practical language. You could throw out many of the religious trappings of the Buddhist path and still have a set of basic practices that lead to the expected effects. You could also keep all the religious trappings, do the basic practices, and produce the same results, assuming of course that you had the extra time and resources necessary to do both. That said, sorting out which elements are disposable and which are vital for getting the experiment to work is not always straightforward. Some reformative movements can easily go too far when their proponents attempt to remove all elements that don't fit with their current cultural preferences, aesthetics, and biases. So, it will be for you, me, and our fellow practitioners and adventurers to help sort this out by our own practice.

In this same pragmatic vein, there has arisen a global movement, inspired by numerous things and promoted by many people, now often referred to as the "Pragmatic Dharma" movement — which I hope one day will be called something more welcoming of those allergic to words such as dharma. This movement can be characterized as embracing a worldview that includes the following ideas:

We can improve the way our minds function and the way they perceive and process reality, in numerous skillful ways.

What works is key. Specifically: it doesn't matter at all where you draw useful things from if they are effective, meaning that they provide the specific benefits sought.

Innovating by extracting key useful elements from various traditions, and combining things to come up with something that works for you is encouraged, as is pursuing traditional goals in traditional ways, as long as the approach works.

This book follows this general approach while refraining from being dismissive of elements of great value from the old traditions.

Part One contains some traditional lists that were taught by the Buddha and relate directly to spiritual training. They make important and practical points in very concise ways. These teachings were presented succinctly on purpose so that people could remember them and use them. It is their very simplicity that makes them so practical and down-to-earth.

However, I am going to take these very condensed teachings and go on and on about them. It turns out that the Buddha sometimes made things so simple that we, 2,500+ years later, are left wondering what he was talking about and how to apply his teachings to our lives. Still, it is amazing that his teachings are still so relevant to our lives today. These teachings are designed to help people get in touch with their reality in some way that makes a difference. They can also help people avoid some of the common pitfalls on the spiritual path and in life in general, some of which I will talk about later.

The Buddha's teachings are also designed to help people develop along some of the nearly infinite axes of development. By axes of development, I mean all the ways we can improve our mind, body, and world. Since this is an endless undertaking, in this book we will focus on a relatively few very specific ones. As the book goes along, I will introduce various things we can practice, experience, gain insight into, develop, and modify that make a positive difference.

Chapter one, "The Three Trainings", introduces morality, concentration, and wisdom (see also The Long Discourses of the Buddha, or the Digha Nikaya, sutta 10, usually referred to as DN 10). These three trainings encompass the sum of the Buddhist path. Thus, as is traditional and for good reason, they will be used as the conceptual framework for this book. The three trainings involve skills that we consciously and explicitly try to master. Each training has its own specific set of premises, goals, practices, and standards of mastery for those practices. These are different from each other, and problems can arise if we conflate the premises of one training when pursuing the others. Each training also has its common pitfalls, limitations, and shadow sides, which are rarely made clear, and failure to do so has caused much confusion.

Thus, I will do my best to make them clear, particularly in Part Two ("Light and Shadows"). The specific standards for success and mastery can sometimes seem a bit technical, particularly the maps of the high concentration states and the stages of insight, so I will wait until Parts Three through Six to present these to keep Part One focused on the basic framework and practices that make the whole thing possible in the first place.

While I think that each part of this book contributes to the whole, there are reasons you may want to skip to certain sections first and fill in the rest later. For instance, if you are having powerful visions or kundalini experiences, you might want to read the first few chapters of Part Four and then go back and read the rest. If you are simply interested in the maps of the stages of insight, go straight to the chapter called "The Progress of Insight". If you just want to get right to some core insight practices, read the chapters on "The Three Characteristics" and "The Seven Factors of Awakening". Should you be in a mood for some social commentary, the beginning of Part Two is for you. If you just want to hear my take on awakening, then "Models of the Stages of Awakening" might be a good place to start. That said, skipping sections is likely to lead to misunderstandings, as plenty of sections that are not close to each other are yet designed to counter excesses that could arise from some other section being read on its own.

I struggled for a long time over whether to present at the beginning or at the end of the book the maps that detail what these practices lead to. I have included them at the end, but you might be the sort who wants to see them first, and if so firstly you should read the chapter called "The Three Characteristics" and then skip to Part Three.

CHAPTER 2

Morality, The First and Last Training

The original Pali word for this training is sila, which I am translating as "morality". People translate it in various ways. Regardless of the word we choose, it is likely to resonate for people both positively and negatively. If the word "morality" bothers you due to the associations it suggests, look at the assumptions, agendas, and practices of this training and come up with your own word for it. I don't think that it is so important what we call it. I do, however, think that we should give careful attention to trying to live it.

From my perspective, training in morality has as its domain all the physical, verbal, and mental behaviors belonging to every single aspect of life that is not explicitly meditative. When we are trying to live a good life in the conventional sense, we are working on training in morality. When we are trying to work on improving our physical, emotional, and mental health, we are training in morality. When we philosophize, we are training in morality. When we exercise, we are training in morality. When we are taking care of others or ourselves, we are training in morality. When we try to guard the environment by not misusing or wasting resources, reform corrupt governments, or make this world a better place for everyone, we are training in morality. When we commit to a non-harming and benevolent livelihood, build a healthy marriage, raise healthy children, or shave our heads and move to a remote place to dedicate ourselves to intensive spiritual practice, we are training in morality. Whatever we do in the ordinary world that we think will be of some benefit to others and ourselves is an aspect of working on this first training.

I should add a qualifier here, relating to what a life well-lived might mean. For some, that is a life of riches, decadence, and hedonism. That is not what I am talking about. It is not that wealth is inherently bad, though there are strong moral arguments to be made for a vastly more equitable distribution of wealth. It is not that all decadence is inherently bad, and I would hate to make someone feel terrible for having a second dessert occasionally, but clearly there is a great degree of spending on luxury that is contributing to the destruction of the planet and behavior that simply leads to more misery for all concerned in the name of "fun". It is not that we shouldn't enjoy our lives, as an enjoyable life is a much easier one to accept, but clearly plenty of the pathways people go down seeking enjoyment do predictably lead to more suffering than they produce pleasure or fulfillment. So, with those qualifiers in mind, ponder what a life well-lived would mean and aspire to that.

The third training, called wisdom, as understood within the Theravada framework, has limits, in that you can only take it so far, and it can be fully mastered. Interestingly, this cannot be said of the first two trainings of morality and concentration. There is no limit to the degree of skill that can be brought to how we conduct ourselves in the world. There are so many ways we can develop, and no obvious ways to define what one hundred percent mastery of even one of these might be. Thus, morality is also the last training in the sense of being the training we need to cultivate throughout our lives. We may be able to attain to extraordinary states of consciousness and understand many aspects of the actual nature of sensate reality, but what people see and what is causal are the ways that these abilities and understandings translate into how we live in the world. Some folks who read MCTB1, for reasons I am unsure of, came away with the mistaken impression that I somehow consider morality as unimportant. Let me now be completely clear on this: morality cultivated throughout our entire lives is critical for everyone, and particularly for those who want to train in concentration and wisdom!

There are basic premises that are extremely helpful when undertaking training in morality. It is very helpful to accept, for example, that a basic moral code, that is, a universal and non-harming ethic, is helpful for getting along in this world, and thus that there is practical, real-world benefit to be derived from training in morality.

It is also helpful to accept in an easygoing and non-dogmatic way, that the more good we do in the world, the more good there will appear in that world both for us and for others, and thus the more good things will happen to us and all others. It is also worth assuming the corollary of this, which is that the more we do harmful actions in the world, the more harm we experience and therefore the more that miserable circumstances arise.

These premises are not unique to Buddhism, nor are they in any way extraordinary, and that brings me to an important point about the spiritual traditions in general: most religions have points that are generically useful that they have attempted to appropriate as exclusively theirs, such that extremist followers of that faith may come to believe that their tradition's teaching on morality is the only teaching on morality. The corollary of this fallacy is that people not of their own religion are considered unlikely or incapable of being truly moral, when, in fact, societies and traditions throughout the ages and around the world have advocated for a universal, non-harming ethic.

It is worth realizing that defining "negative" and "positive" action is often very much a question of perspective. In the face of this, some will retreat into the semi-dysfunctional and often self-serving position of moral relativism, in which we decide that morality is totally subjective or that morality is arbitrary and thus futile or unnecessary to bother with. Paradigms that are less intellectual and more grounded in common sense can help us to avoid falling into the paralyzing and extremely dangerous trap of imagining that it is futile to train in morality, however seemingly relative and arbitrary. It is better to try to do our best and fail than not to try at all.

Thus, the Buddha taught that what we think, say, and do has consequences for our subsequent moment-to-moment experience. When undertaking training in morality, we are proceeding from the premise that we can, if we choose, control what we think, say, and do, thus creating consequences that are pleasant and beneficial, both in terms of our experience and that of others. Rather than accepting our current level of intellectual, emotional, and psychological development as being beyond our power to change, we consciously and explicitly adopt the empowering view that we can work with these aspects of our lives and change them for the better. We assume that we do have the capacity to change our world and our attitudes towards our world. We take responsibility for our actions and their consequences.

Further, as a part of our empowerment, we assume that the more we bring our resources and abilities to this training, the likelier we are to succeed. We have a body, we have reason, we have our intuition, we have our heart, and we can learn and remember. We have a community of others who have wisdom to share, we have books and other media that contain advice for living a good life, and we have our friends and family. We can draw on all these and more to try to live a good life, a life in which our thoughts, words, and deeds reflect as closely as possible the standards we have consciously adopted and defined for ourselves. The more consciously engaged we are with our task, the more we are likely to be successful.

Crucial to the control of what happens in our lives is our intention. Thus, training in morality places much emphasis on intention, with the basic assumption being that the more our intentions are kind and compassionate, the more we are likely to be able to manifest kind and compassionate thoughts, words, and deeds.

(Continues…)

---

Excerpted from "Mastering the Core Teachings of the Buddha"
by .
Copyright © 2018 Daniel M. Ingram.
Excerpted by permission of Aeon Books Ltd.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

---

Table of Contents

Preface to the Second Edition,
Foreword and Warning,
Part I: The Fundamentals,
1. Introduction,
2. Morality, The First and Last Training,
3. Concentration, The Second Training,
4. Wisdom, The Third Training,
5. The Three Characteristics,
6. The Five Spiritual Faculties,
7. The Seven Factors of Awakening,
8. The Three Trainings Revisited,
9. The Four Noble Truths,
10. Objects for Insight Practices,
11. On Teachers,
12. Daily Life and Retreats,
13. A Few Odds and Ends About Retreats,
14. Post-Retreat Advice,
15. Postures,
16. Resolve,
Part II: Light and Shadows,
17. Introduction to Parts Two through Five,
18. Buddhism versus the Buddha,
19. Content and Ultimate Reality,
20. What Went Wrong?,
21. A Clear Goal,
22. Harnessing the Energy of the Defilements,
23. Right Thought and the Augean Stables,
24. From Content to Insight,
Part III: The Shamatha Jhanas,
25. Introduction to Part Three,
26. The Wide World of Jhana,
27. The Concentration States (Shamatha Jhanas),
28. The Formless Realms,
29. Kasina Practice,
Part IV: Insight,
30. The Progress of Insight,
31. The Three Doors,
32. "What Was That?",
33. Review,
34. The Vipassana Jhanas,
35. How the Maps Help,
36. Beyond First Path ("What Next?"),
Part V: Awakening,
37. Models of the Stages of Awakening,
38. Integration,
39. It Is Possible!,
40. More on the "Mushroom Factor",
41. So, Who the Heck Is Daniel M. Ingram?,
Part VI: My Spiritual Quest,
42. Backstory,
43. The Early Years,
44. Bodysurfing,
45. College and Pre-Buddhist Exploration,
46. The Middle Years,
47. Thank U, India,
48. The First Bodh Gaya Retreat,
49. The First MBMC Retreat,
50. The Dark Night Gets Ugly,
51. The Second Bodh Gaya Retreat,
52. The Great Stream Enterer,
53. Dharma Power, Dharma Poison,
54. The Middle Paths,
55. Map Failure,
56. Wandering,
57. Kasinas, Powers, and Retreats,
58. Introduction to the Powers,
59. Are the Powers Real?,
60. Paradigm Fluency,
61. Crazy?,
62. Those Damn Fairies ...,
63. Definitions of the Powers,
64. Ethics and the Powers,
65. How to Cultivate the Powers,
66. Made Pliant and Malleable,
67. Benefits of the Powers,
68. Magick and the Brahma Viharas,
69. Bhavana Society 2001 Retreat,
70. Around the World and Finding Home,
71. More Practical Tidbits,
72. Conclusion and Best Wishes,
Index,