Hello Caleb, Tricia, Jill, Eve, Clare and others, thank-you all for
expressing your points of view on Contemplative Recovery vs Spiritual
Bypass. The point of course was not informed by the misspelling of <tier>
as <tear>, so thank-you, Caleb, for pointing out the spelling error. I
appreciate my critics for doing the job of editorial feedback, although it
is too often delivered with a profound lack of respect.

Please excuse the delay in my reply. I am sorry to be getting back so late
to you all, but I was traveling, and the computer was on the fritz after I
accidentally dumped a cup of hot tea with milk and honey into the computer,
but now it is working fine again after giving it several baths in isopropyl
alcohol.  

I am now in Amarillo, TX, working as an archaeologist. We had our first day
of work yesterday.  It was pretty hard work of excavation, which is the
inglorious task of digging up buckets of dirt and screening them for the
occasional bone or stone fragment left by pre-historic plains Indians about
1,000 years ago. It was a lot of hard work, but it was outside and it was a
cool day, so it was OK. It also pays pretty well and they have put me up,
all expenses paid, in a nice hotel, which is a radical shift from living in
a shelter.

The sad fact of religion in all cultures is that most religious observers
generally are superficial in their endeavors, including religious
professionals, especially when we find that the progenitors of most
religions were most probably contemplatives with attainment; whereas most
religious professionals of most religions today tend to rely upon morality
imposition through guilt and ritualized devotional practices, while ignoring
depth in meditation, which brings with it deep self-reflection.

I am ever so glad to have been of help to some of you.  I do try to express
myself so that all people from all language and cultural groups can
understand me, but there are occasional lapses in spelling conventions that
Caleb on the 4th Wheel so kindly pointed out.

Since Caleb seemed to feel that a single spelling error was a transgression
in the 4th Noble truth of the Nobel Eightfold Path, then let us look at how
the Nobel Eightfold Path is traditionally misinterpreted, which suggests a
wholesale transgression of the fourth noble truth by the entire Buddhist
priesthood (sangha), and not by just a single individual, who happens to
write stream of consciousness, and occasionally over-looks a spelling
convention.

So, one of the largest problems in how the dhamma is traditional
misinterpreted in the western languages, which I have been pointing out for
8 years now, is to translate the Sanskrit term <samadhi> and the Pali term
<jhana> as mere <concentration> only reveals a spiritual bankruptcy among
the Buddhist priesthood (sangha). The reason why I call it a <<spiritual
bankruptcy>> is, while concentration is a reasonable translation for the 7th
fold, which is samma-sati, which is traditionally translated into English as
<mindfulness>; it is, however, a gross misinterpretation of the 8th fold,
which was defined in ecstatic terms in the earliest literature of Buddhism,
as reflected in the Pali suttas.

Now, the big problem in Buddhism is, pointing out the above translation
error should not turn into demonizing the individual who pointed out this
gross translation error; however, anyone who examines my history with the
sangha will know that I have been demonized for my work, and I happen to be
the only dhamma teacher I know who writes and teaches with the lucidity of
the personal experience with samadhi and jhana. We can thus conclude that
mainstream Buddhism is just as bankrupt as mainstream Christianity.

So, thank-you again, Caleb, for pointing out my spelling error. While I have
an English degree, I got that degree, not because of being good at spelling
or punctuation, but because I was exceptional at expressing myself in
writing as a poet, and in conducting critical literary analysis.

It was in fact using the skills of critical literary analysis that I was
able to demonstrate that translating the Sanskrit term <samadhi> and the
Pali term <jhana> as mere <concentration> is a gross transgression of, not
only the fourth Noble truth, but a complete misunderstanding of the dhamma.

However, pointing out the flaws in expressing the dhamma in English often
results in abusive responses from the more naïve true-believers of Buddhism,
who cannot believe that the vast majority of Buddhist priests and meditation
teachers (even the famous one) obviously have no direct experience with
samadhi and jhana, which are the eighth fold of the Nobel Eight Fold Path.
This often results in nit-picky responses to my writing, like dismissing my
entire thesis for a single spelling error in an otherwise lucid piece of
writing.

So, I would agree with Jill, when she wrote on the JSG <<Until psychology
recognizes the existence of altered states of consciousness that are NOT
mental illness, we are at a impasse.>> Because, Maslow's hierarchy of needs
(pointed out by Eve on Contemplative Recovery), which are: Physiological,
Safety, Social, Esteem and self-actualization; only refer to the
psycho-social human being, but does not at all address our spiritual
component; however, I would agree that most religious professionals tend to
bury their hierarchy of needs under a mountain of morality and religiosity,
which would explain why so few of them seem to have any direct experience at
all with the religious experience, which is called <jhana> and <samadhi> in
Asia.

Most importantly in revealing just how corrupt human society is, I would
have to add, that our impasse as humans is exacerbated by the fact that no
priesthood seems to understand our spiritual component through the religious
experience. If they talk about it at all, it is all too often mystified to
the point that only one individual in 2,000 years or more can experience it;
whereas we have grandmothers, like Jill and Clare, who have demonstrated in
their lucid accounts of the religious experience, that they have had more
depth in their religious experiences than any priest has demonstrated in any
religion in hundreds of years.

Some of you may find reading the following essay, and/or listening to the
following dhamma discourse. of interest on this subject.

Understanding Right Meditation (samma-samadhi) Concentration leads to
Absorption, which leads to Enlightenment (May 9, 2004)
http://www.greatwesternvehicle.org/concentration.htm

May 26, 2006 (evening) Kayagatisati Sutta (MN 119) definition of terms,
consciousness, cognition, concentration, absorption, self verses no-self and
non-dualism, hunter-gatherers and shamanism. € Quicktime.MP4
http://www.greatwesternvehicle.org/dhammatalks/05-26-06.2.mp4
http://www.greatwesternvehicle.org/dhammatalks/05-26-06.2.mp3

Best regards to all, Jeff/jhananda