The Non-Duality Model is without doubt my favorite of them all. It essentially says that the goal is to stop a process of identification that turns some patterns of sensations into a Doer, Perceiver, Center Point, Soul, Agent or Self in some very fundamental perceptual way. By seeing these sensations as they are the process can gradually be seen through until one day there are no more sensations that trick the mind in this way. My favorite quote that articulates this model is the one that goes something like, “In the seeing just the seen, in the hearing just the heard, in the thinking just the thought,” and thus I may repeat this quote a few times just to make the point of how profound it is. Basically, there is just a field of sensations, as there was before, but now all of these sensations are progressively just seen to be as they are, and all the sensations that we generally call “me” are just a part of this process.

    This model does not imply anything else, promises nothing related to any other models except in some loose way the Fundamental Perception Model that I will talk about shortly. The Non-Duality Model is the one of the most practical models for practice, in that it focuses on simply seeing things as they are right now.

    I will talk more about this model as we go, and have already talked about it often in a less direct way. I present it first to serve as a foil or counterpoint to all of the other models, and it is the only model that can withstand reality testing without qualification or difficulty. All of the other models may contain some degree of truth somewhere in them, either literally or poetically, but this one you can hang your hat on all the way through. This awareness develops gradually with some sharp jumps along the way, leading to the endless debates about sudden and gradual schools of awakening, a subject that will hopefully become more clear as we go, but probably deserves some mention here.

    There are schools of awakening, particularly some Zen (Chan) traditions from China and Korea, and some interpretations of Hinduism, though this is not a complete list, that say that awakening happens in one big shift and that’s basically it, regardless of exactly how you define “it”. They deny the claims of the progressive schools (Theravada, Tibetans, some other strains of Zen, most schools of Sufism, Qabala, other Western Traditions, etc.) that there is significantly more to do on the fundamental wisdom front past the first big shift to understanding ultimate reality. Possible explanations for these schools include:

1.    There may be a few rare individuals that somehow manage this due to whatever interesting way they are wired or practiced, though I have never met anyone who did this.

2.    There may be schools founded or influenced by people who got to the first stage of awakening and somehow never realized there could be anything more than that or got trapped in a lie about being fully awakened when they hadn’t yet realized there was more to go and never retracted their initial, erroneous claim.

3.    There are people who just thought that was the dogma somehow and stuck with it regardless of any issues of actually having insight.

4.    Other explanations I haven’t thought of or run across.

Being as every single person I have ever known has followed a progressive path, including myself, it is very hard for me to believe the progressive claims except for keeping open the possibility that there may be the exceedingly rare practitioner who occasionally manages to pull this off and thus imagines based on their limited experience that this is how it happens in general. In short, if you manage to do this, more power to you, and please let me know. Otherwise, I would bet on the progressive schools, and if you attain something that you are pretty impressed by, give it time to see how it holds up when the troubles of the world come knocking at your door over the months and years after that shift of perspective.

    Related to the Non-Duality Model, and also useful for practice, are the Fundamental Perception Models. I say models here because various traditions emphasize different qualities of reality as being essential. For instance, the Theravada uses the Three Characteristics of Impermanence, Suffering and No-Self, as you already know well by this point. The Mahayana traditions (Tibetans in particular), may emphasize Shunyata or emptiness, and the Vajrayana traditions may emphasize luminosity or the space-like meditative equipoise of Dzogchen. They may also talk about Maha Ati, or express fundamental truths in some other way.

    These models may directly state or imply that enlightenment involves continuously perceiving these aspects of things in all sensations at a conscious level, so that every waking instant we were flooded with the sense of impermanence or luminosity or whatever as our dominant experience. While attempting to perceive this at all times is excellent practice advice, particularly when on retreat, and was how I was practicing when I got arahatship, were these models true then realization would seem to involve flooding the consciousness of the individual with a ton of information at all times. While there may be moments or bursts of this sort of perception in enlightened individuals, this is not what finally happens. Instead, with strong awareness of how things are, a process of identification stops, the switch is thrown, as noted above in the Non-Duality Models. By following the practice advice of the Fundamental Perception Models we may come to stop this process.

    However, as the Buddha said, do not imagine that you must continue to carry the boat once you have crossed the river. While enlightened individuals can at a whim notice the true aspects of sensations, just as color is clear to a person with good eyesight (assuming they are not color-blind), so these things are clear to an enlightened being to various degrees as they progress along the path. That said, just because one can perceive something doesn’t mean that particular aspect is the dominant aspect of consciousness at all times. In short, the Fundamental Perception Models are very useful for practice, but do not quite accurately describe the final result.

    Specific Perception Models essentially state or imply that an enlightened being will be constantly hyper-aware of every single sensation that arises in their field of perception, including not just the ultimate aspects of the Fundamental Perception Models, but also every single little detail of the content of those sensations, achieving at all times the perfected fusion of the completely open and panoramic perspective of High Equanimity with the laser-like precision of the Arising and Passing Away. It implies that rather than stopping a process, enlightenment is about becoming so fantastically alert that you see not only the true nature but also the specifics of each and every sensation that arises at all times. This is not even close to what happens in reality. While enlightened beings will cycle through those stages, when mindfulness is low each of those stages will present in a low key way, and only for moments here and there will there be anything like that kind of awareness, though when enlightened beings are on retreat and/or really powering the mindfulness and concentration they can temporarily achieve something that resembles these high ideals.

    The Specific Perception Models are another instance where practice instructions get turned into an ideal of what is supposed to happen in exactly the same way as happens with the Fundamental Perception Models. They become one more example of carrying the boat after we have crossed the river. Again, mindfulness comes and goes, sleep comes and goes (though the Tibetan teachings on dream yoga are very intriguing), concentration comes and goes, various perspectives and perceptual thresholds parade through, and the cycles of the nanas continue on and on.

    The ideals in this model and many models that follow it are sometimes used as a weapon by those who like to criticize those who rightly or wrongly claim to be enlightened. Examples include, “Don’t you remember when I said (such and such)?”, “Didn’t you notice how I cleaned the bathroom?”, or “How could you have forgotten to pay the power bill?” The implication inherent in each of these is that enlightened being should have perfect awareness of all aspects of their sensate reality as well as perfect memory of all of those aspects. This ideal is unfortunately completely bogus. I so wanted to be a Sensation Perceiving Superstar with a photographic memory and have been sorely disappointed. As basically everyone out there has some aspect of this model in their working definition of what “enlightenment” must be, these ideals can be a particular problem in relationships, particularly business relationships and romantic ones for those who are out of the closet about enlightenment.

    In this basic vein, this brings up another selling point of realistic, down-to-earth, human models of what awakening is. The more you advocate very high, idealized, delusional, perfectionistic models of awakening, the more those who actually get to know well you if and when you get enlightened will realize how full of shit you are, particularly people such as spouses or partners, business associated, best friends and the like. Further, the more you get stuck trying to be like the person you dream you are supposed to be rather than who you are, the more you can get isolated in your false and pretentious fantasy land, locked away from the grounding, healing, and helpful reality testing that comes from community and real, intimate relationships. However, if the Specific Perceptual Models are a problem in this way, you haven’t seen anything until you get to the Emotional Models.