[HugoZyl]

Dear and venerable followers of the Buddha, the Dhamma and the Sangha. 🙏🏻

  It is a great privilege and pleasure to be able to share a little something with the dear ones. Very grateful to have been able to follow the teachings for about 500 days now, and thought it might be constructive to share what the results have been as we say goodbye to the year 2025.

  If anything in this post appears to be conceited or spoken vainly, please forgive as this is not the purpose. Simply hope to say things in a way which is clear and most constructive.

  Background

  After finishing high school, I felt no purpose in life, had no interest in work, studying, marriage or seeking anything in the world. This lead to great depression… and to a spiritual experience. As I sat on the ground crying, a voice, clear as crystal, spoke in my head. It said three words, ‘Read that book’. Having grown up in a nominal Christian home, there was always a Bible in the house, and I instinctively knew the voice was referring to the Bible. I started reading it and immediately converted to Christianity. This completely changed me: Moral living, prayer, fasting, gave away all possessions except for a few clothes (was still living in my mother’s house at that time). Started going door to door to tell people about Christianity. This led to a spiritual experience one day where I was completely overwhelmed with divine peace, and fell down to the ground simply overcome with joy. This stage lasted about six years.

  The next step was when I met a man who was a follower of Daoism. To my great surprise, he was much more spiritual than me and even had some supernatural powers. I could not explain this for at that time, I had the wrong view that only Christianity was truth. He then recommended me to an organization called the Spiritual Science Research Foundation (www.ssrf.org). This is a group which focuses on spiritualising eveything in one’s life. They put no focus on individual religion but rather on how to eat, how to walk, how to talk, how to greet, what clothes to wear, which position to sleep in, and every other thing you can think of, while all the time chanting the name of God according to your own religion from morning till night. I stayed with this group for about ten years, during which time I was able to get into the first jhana.

  I still felt unfulfilled, and this led to step three when I read the book called ‘Handbook for Mankind’ by Bhikkhu Buddhadasa, and thus was led to this website and thus this forum and thus this post.

  Positives & Negatives

  Point 1: It is with much gratitude that I can share that I have received many spiritual experiences. However, at the end of the day they left me without feeling fulfilled.

  Point 2: For about eight years now I’ve had a drinking problem. It is bizarre. I find it difficult to understand. I do not like the taste of alcohol. I do not like to be drunk. I do not like to wake up with a hangover. But it continues on week after week. I guess it may have to do with finding a purpose in the day. It is a wrong perception that having a drink fulfills that purpose.

  Point 3: When it comes to greed, I’m also confused. I work part time, sometimes making ￥3000, sometimes ￥6000. This doesn’t bother me at all. However, if I see a ￥5 lying on the ground, I will be very excited and pick it up immediately. It makes no sense.

  Point 4: Concerning meditation, I try to do four to eight hours a day, depending on circumstances. What I’m calling meditation would be to read a sutta, sit cross-legged, go into the 1st jhana, contemplate, if I lose focus, mindfully take a breath, contemplate. Revolve around anicca, dukkha and anatta; kamma and rebirth.

  Point 5: An interesting experience… I went walking in the evening, about three months ago. I was alone, went to a dark area with no people, and didn’t take my phone. Carelessly, I fell into a ditch about two meters deep. Broke my wrist, cracked a rib, busted my face and loosed my knee cap. I was alone there in the dark hole for about an hour. Finally clawed my way out of there and limped my way back home. All that time I did not feel sorry about it or scared, or think it was a big deal. I knew that nothing that could happen to me could in any way compare with the suffering of those poor beings in hell. And I knew I would never go to hell so no matter what happens to me, even if I died there in the ditch, it doesn’t really matter. There was still some selfishness, because I did not consider how would the family feel, though.

  Conclusions

  I do not live in an area where there are real monks. Thus, I will probably never have the chance to become one. 

  I do not feel that I am special in any way. I am just the result of previous causes. 

  It is difficult for me to know if I’m really making progress or if I’m stuck. I cannot say I am more advanced now than I was a year ago. 

  Extremely grateful for the opportunity to be able to hear the pure Dhamma, communicate with the venerable ones, and share something which might be meaningful to another.

  Thank you for taking the time to read this humble post. It took me about an hour to write it… I’m going to count that as an hour of meditation. 😊

  Namo Buddhaya 🕊️

[Lal]

Thank you for sharing your experience, HugoZyl.

• Each person follows the Path in their own way.
• I don’t know how much you read on the website or which sections you read. If there are specific questions, I can try to answer.

 

[Lal]

Over the past three years or so, I wrote posts at an advanced level to present the deepest material, per my understanding. 

• I will start a new series of posts to outline the necessary background material. I hope that will be useful to HugoZyl and everyone in general. 

[DhammaSponge]

I would also appreciate another look at the background, Lal. So far, I have mostly been working on cultivating the anicca saññā, i.e., noting when the mind leans towards something as a way of trying to get lasting security from a universe that ultimately has none.

 

I really am not sure what would be the nail in the coffin for getting to Sotapanna in this case..

[Lal]

Yes. I will address how to make a step-by-step progression on the Path. It is critically important to ‘get the basics.’

• The website has expanded to the extent that it is difficult to navigate.
• Furthermore, I was totally focused on the issue of the (distorted) saññā. So, it is time to simplify things a bit and try to ‘connect the dots.’
• Any ideas on which topics to address will be welcome.

_______

Regarding the issue of ‘anicca saññā,‘ it is essential to understand that our pleasurable experiences are mind-made. It is easiest to understand that with colors. It is easy to see that ‘color’ is a product of the mind (see “The Illusion of Perception (Saññā) – It Is Scientific Consensus“). However, later in the new series, I will try to simplify the issue further.

• The more I think about it, we are fortunate to live in an era in which this issue is fully confirmed by science. The Buddha did not address it in detail in the suttas because there was no easy way to explain the concept in that time; people lacked the necessary (scientific) background. That was compensated with saddhā (faith). When the Buddha stated that saññā is a mirage, most people readily accepted that. That is the starting point to see the ‘anicca nature’ and to contemplate  ‘anicca saññā.‘

[Tetsuo]

Thanks for sharing, HugoZyl. Your story is an interesting and eventful one. I hope the resources here help you continue making progress.

As for myself, I’ve noticed recently that the gap between having a sensory experience and experiencing a triggered response has increased in duration. Along with this, the strength of the triggered response itself seems to have weakened.

As a result, the mind is beginning to observe for itself the arbitrariness of attachment, in the sense that it clearly depends on conditions rather than being something intrinsic.

I’ve also started to notice how the act of assigning meaning subtly shapes how things appear. There are moments where it becomes clear that the mind is actively making things seem a particular way.

For example, when I look out of my living room window at the apartments opposite me, I can sometimes see the mind quietly engaging with that visual experience, moulding it into something agreeable. This process is quite subtle (at least for me at present), but it’s something I didn’t notice nearly as clearly before.

[Lal]

Tetsuo wrote: “As a result, the mind is beginning to observe for itself the arbitrariness of attachment, in the sense that it clearly depends on conditions rather than being something intrinsic.”

• This is a critical observation and is the basis of Paṭicca Samuppāda.
• The mind’s response to a sensory input always depends on the ‘state of the mind.’ This is the ‘conditional aspect’ (‘paccayā‘) in Paṭicca Samuppāda. For example, the ‘vedanā paccayā taṇhā‘ step depends on the strength of the vedanā experienced. The strength of the vedanā (which is ‘samphassa-jā-vedanā‘) can be different, for example, if one is drunk. This is why people tend to commit more immoral deeds while drunk. Also, one can be ‘drunk’ not only with alcohol, but also with money, power, etc. One would generally commit fewer immoral deeds when living a simple, moral life; the temptations are less.
• The most critical step in Paṭicca Samuppāda is ‘avijjā paccayā saṅkhāra,’ where the Paṭicca Samuppāda process is triggered. The trigger for avijjā to arise is the ‘kāma saññā‘ for us in the kāma loka. That step is blocked for an Arahant (for all sensory inputs) because an Arahant has ‘seen with wisdom’ that the ‘kāma saññā‘ (colors, tastes, smells, etc.) are ‘mind-made’ and are mirages. 
• This is what I tried to explain in “What Does ‘Paccayā’ Mean in Paṭicca Samuppāda?” 

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HugoZyl

[HugoZyl]

Dear Venerables and Friends 🦋

  Thank you kindly for your responses and insightful feedback. 

  This beginner still has a lot of misunderstanding about these triggers for mind and rebirth. For many years, I thought that the highest level would be a person who sits there like a piece of wood, though still completely mentally sound; he is not mentally handicapped. I thought this would indicate complete ending of craving for sensuality and body.

  Still remember my first question on this forum was concerning the picture on this wesite of Venerable Waharaka. I asked why is he looking at the camera? Doesn’t that imply that he thinks he has a self.

  Slowly studying the articles on the site. Slow and steady wins the race. 😊 Unfortunately, not able to make any meaningful suggestions for improvement. But in a way, the content of this website is similar to the content of the Tipitaka. You just have to dive in.

  Peace and love to all in this new year. 

  Namo Buddhaya 🕊️

[Author]

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