Buddhism, Meditation, and the Baha'i Faith: Part 3

Part 1 here and part 2 here.  

I realize that most people go into meditation looking for stability, happiness, and comfort in the face of their own existence...I have spent many years cultivating extreme experiential instability, careful awareness of the minutia of my suffering and the clear perception that I don't even exist as a separate entity...I can honestly say that these practices are without doubt the sanest thing I have ever done in my life. -Daniel Ingram

The path of insight is not known to be easy. There are said to be many ups and downs - ecstatic bliss and energy one moment and crushing fear and misery the next. There are many maps of this territory, all different on a superficial level, yet all containing many of the same fundamentals. In the words of Ingram:

One of the most profound things about these stages is that they are strangely predictable regardless of the practitioner or the insight tradition. Texts two thousand years old describe the stages just the way people go through them today, though there will be some individual variation on some of the particulars today as then. The Christian maps, the Sufi maps, the Buddhist maps of the Tibetans and the Theravada, and the maps of the Khabbalists and Hindus are all remarkably consistent in their fundamentals. I chanced into these classic experiences before I had any training in meditation, and I have met a large number of people who have done likewise. These maps, Buddhist or otherwise, are talking about something inherent in how our minds progress in fundamental wisdom that has little to do with any tradition and lots to do with the mysteries of the human mind and body. They are describing basic human development. These stages are not Buddhist but universal, and Buddhism is merely one of the traditions that describes them, albeit unusually well.

In this post I will discuss the map, known as the "Progress of Insight", which is originally derived from the Pali cannon in the Theravada tradition, as related by Mahasi Sayada and Daniel Ingram. The part of the map that I will discuss is "1st path" (there are four successive paths) which is basically the road to initial, but not complete, enlightenment, to a point after which insight generates itself automatically whether one practices or not, beyond the "plane of limitation". I will also relate this path to the first Four Valleys in the Sufi tradition, as commented on by Baha'u'llah: Search, Love, Knowledge, and Unity. 

My motivation for doing this is simply to share something that has become a big part of my life. This is my own working model of spiritual development and I will relate some of my experiential reports traveling along this path. 

Hotels, Ruhi, and an Inherently Implausible Goal

I'm paid to care about you.

Baha'is and hotels are running into similar problems

The century leading up to 1960 was an era of grand hotels. Palace-like, they catered to the rich and provided a unique, personal experience because they were mostly independently owned or part of small groups.

Then came the chains. In the 1950s a young Mr Hilton started building his hotels around the world and abandoned the grand hotel model. Soon came Mr Marriott and others with standard operating procedures (SOPs) that made every hotel in the chain conform to protocols, down to how long an egg is cooked, how many times the phone is allowed to ring before picking up, and what is available on TV. A hotel might have 2,000 SOPs to follow.

The shift from character-filled grand hotels to ubiquitous uniformity meant that the personal connections were lost. Now, customers have no fealty, and would hardly know the difference between hotels were it not for the brand name on the building.

Hotel owners are aware of the problem. The best hotels have a happy atmosphere and staff that go out of their way to be helpful, and such hotels are more profitable. Bosses have tried to manufacture this emotional connection for guests, but how would that come through an SOP? As soon as customers realize that the smile and personal note on their receipt is a job requirement, the magic is gone. Is it even possible to mass-produce genuine emotional connections?

A recent article, Be My Guest, in The Economist magazine (from which I gathered much of the above) had a great line that summed up something I haven't been able to put to words myself:

"Replicating intimate service on a mass scale is an inherently implausible goal"

If you can't see where I'm going with this, the worldwide Baha'i community has been struggling with this for decades.

10 of My Favorite Posts From Other Baha'i Coherence Bloggers

There has been a lot of great blogging here over the last few years. In the the spirit of nostalgia I felt compelled to highlight 10 of my favorite posts by other bloggers, although many others could have easily made the list.

1.) Aria's post Montessori, Evolution, and Spirituality
2) Daniel's Post Animal Companions in Life and Death, Part II
3) Greg's post Some Thoughts on how Baha'is Approach Moral and Social Questions
4) Bryan's post 29 Nations of the Earth
5) Kat's post On Behalf of the Village: Neighborhood Children's Classes and the Baha'i Child
6) Bryan's post The End of War
7) Jakes post Why should we REALLY Care about Poverty
8) Ryan's post Does motivation matter? Motivation, incentive-based policies, and their interconnectedness.
9) Mary's post Benjamin Franklin's America
10) Greg's series on Christianity and the Baha'i Faith 1 2 3 4