Theos-Talk Archives (November 1999 Message tl00091)

Hello,

I thought I would develop the gradual path and sudden path
comparison.  It seems to be a cross-cultural phenomenon.

In the west (pagan Neo-Platonism, Hellenistic Judaism, and
Christianity), the gradual path is characterized as three stages
of purgation, illumination, and union.  The two premier early
Christian representatives of this gradual path are Dionysius
the Areopagite and John the Silent.  Later, John of the Cross
and Teresa of Avila are representatives of the gradual path.
The representatives of the sudden path, in the west, were
Evagrios, R. Bacon, and Eckhart.  In the Buddhist east,
the representatives of each are well know.

To repeat, the first phase of the process of transformation in
the gradual path is purgation.  Purgation has three components.

Purgation of the awareness (nous, the Greek for buddhi)
is the practice of samadhi or as the Neo-platonists and
Eastern Christians put it, enstasis.  This process overcomes
the clouded distractibility of the awareness as it becomes a
stable, lucent, presence of sober wakefulness.  This intial
phase is the purgation/purification of awareness of disruptive
and interfering thoughts and emotions by separating it
from them.

Purgation of the reasoning/conceptualizing part of mind
(dianoia, Greek for manas) is the development of its
powers of analysis and logical reasoning.  The initial
phase is purgative because it is a training of the
reasoning/logical powers of mind to not be distracted,
fuzzy-headed, or fallacious by separating it from
other factors like emotion.

Purgation of emotions is developing them into
well-crafted patterns of response and perceptive
insight by purging them of patterns of resentment,
hurt, and other crap of an emotional past haunting
the mind as baggage and bad habits.

Illumination has the same three corresponding
aspects.  Where the initial phase of purgation was
to separate and normalize the three functions without
mutual interference and disruption, the illuminative phase
starts to bring them back together in mutually supporting
roles.

Union is where these three spheres have be fully fused
with each other and with the higher guiding reality the
controls/is how the universe flows (to put it as broadly
as possible).  Thus, contemplation (theoria) has three
components in all these phases.

Theoria = enstasis/hesychia of the nous + diakrisis
(discriminative powers of rational mind) of dianoia +
praxis of the eso kardia and thymos.  Once harmonized,
theoria leads to episteme, gnosis, or sophia (depending
on which tradition you refer to).

The gradual path seeks to remove obstacles to
clear/correct functioning first, and then, bring on
the enlightened state of functioning.  By contrast,
the sudden path says the enlightened state is
automatically self-correcting.  The trick is to find
it and learn how to stay in it in a variety of situations
just as if one was learning how to stay on a surf
board through all sorts of waves/conditions.  Thus,
for Evagrios, one found the unitive state which was
automatically an illuminative and purgative state.
This was also the view of Eckhart.  It was also,
I'd argue, what Krishnamurti discovered.  In a
theosophical context, I'd say Krishnamurti became
a teacher of the sudden path while books such
as Taimini's Self Culture is a gradual path text.

So, again, emotions are movers - e-motors.  They
had been evolved to be rapid bodily responses to situations.
Thus, they have a bodily aspect as moving or e-moting.  Muscles
are prepped to be flexed for action or relaxed by bio-chemical, neural,
and lymphatic signals sent to prompt for a line of action.  And they
have a psychological aspect where they are experienced as a
strong imperative "do this." At least in effect.  As evolved patterns
of almost automatic response, they are the legacy/replacement of
behavioural instincts.  They boot up body and urge the mind.  But
they stop.  Then it is time for mind and/or training to take over.
And further, as almost automatic patterns of rapid response, they
have to have been correct enough of the time to allow the body to
survive.  So, most the time (maybe with few defective bodies that
can't harm overall viability of a species) they correctly respond
appropriately to situations.  Imagine animal that had fear/flight
in face of food and anger/aggression at predator for which it
was food.  Soon the whole species would be dead.  The human
trick is to train and refine these patterns of emotional response
from their endowed primitive forms into higher and more nuanced
forms.  Because emotions are movers, they can enhance or interfere
or interrupt other mental processes in the mind due to the legacies
of bad karma as chronic malfunctioning.

Besides being patterns of response, I said emotions are cognitive.  They
are forms of perception beyond the five senses.  There has to be
a correct recognition of a situation for the emotion to be a correct
response.  But what is more, without emotion, sometimes what
the situation is is left unknown especially if it is an emotional or
social situation.  Emotions can only cognitively mislead us only
if we are rightly relying on them to see or get information.
The eye can deceive as well as the ear for same reason.
If we rely on them to perceive, they sometimes will mislead.
Same with emotions.

The problem with emotions as both movers and as perceivers in modern
society is that they are not trained.  The gradualist approach seeks
to train each main power, buddhi-nous-intellectus, manas-dianoia-ratio,
and the emotions first to work correctly alone (purgation), and then,
in tandem (illumination - in lam rim, "higher insight"), and finally,
as one integrated power of being (union - in lam rim, "perfect insight"
or "enlightenment.").  The sudden approach says finding the unitive
state is self-correcting (automatically illuminative and purgative), and
the task, is learning to maintain it and practice it in a variety of
situations.

Anyway, last time I mentioned virtue ethics.  The standard conceptions
of it are mostly gradualist in approach.  A virtue is a well-crafted
competence that has been cultivated into a high degree of
excellence.  The Greek arete (virtue) literally means excellence.
Virtue ethics was not about finding correct rules to manage
large social group (decide how to behave in one) but often
said to be training persons to be of good character.  Goal
was to create not good rules but good people.  In Taoism,
Confucianism, Buddhism, and Greek philosophy, importance
component of ethical training was training emotions (dispositions
of heart, of thymos, etc.) into reliably and as excellent patterns
of emotional insightful response as possible.  There was
training of emotions.

This is part of any Buddhist meditation training as well as yogic
training.  On the gradualist path, the first step is the meditational
separation of awareness from the inner useless and usually
negative chatter of thought driven by emotional resentments and
identifications until at least dhyana (pure awareness without thought
or emotional interference or distraction) or samadhi is achieved.
And I said that most westerners mistakenly think this is the whole
of meditation.  Through the practice of right concentration/awareness
training, ability to be purely aware is achieved (right concentration).
But this is a mere means to an end.  Most western meditators
get no further than this thinking this is meditation.  Again, this
is wrong.

On the gradualist path there is also, as I said, a discipline of
thought by its learning correct information correctly understood
and logical training in non-formal mental reasoning into a very
high state of logical expertise (right views or right
discrimination/inferencing).  This is why debates, mental math,
and mental logic are part of the training of Buddhist monks.
They perform, in their head in an instant, astounding feats
of mental contraposition, conversion, and obversion of
the categorical propositions of a syllogistic argument that
it takes western logicians a pencil and paper to work out.
They do this in debates.

Third, the gradualist path has the crucial training in ethical
practices which are training of emotions, cleaning out
resentments/crap, etc, as I said.

The main characteristic, again, of the gradualist path, is the
three phases of this development.  Once these three absolutely
necessary and separate lines (at the purgative stage) have
reached a certain level of proficiency, they begin to enhance the
other lines (at the illuminative stage).  Thought, instead of distracting
and clouding awareness, in its disciplined form sharpens it
into sharp analytic, clear, and distinct awareness.  Clear pristine
awareness that is a gathered and concentrated focus that cannot
be distracted can give enhanced attention to the implications
and ramifications of a line of logical inference.  Purified emotions
no longer disturb (in their moving aspect) reasoning processes
or awareing processes and no longer (in their cognitive aspect)
cause awareness to misperceive or reason to falsely or
fallaciously mis-infer.  Positively, they become enhanced forms
of insight integrating the five senses into a total empathetic
response or taking in of a situation in an insightful fashion.
Then, these three aspects of human development, beyond
enhancing each other, begin to fuse and interpermeate
each other (at the unitive stage).  They become fused into
one consciousness.

The sudden path, again, says find the unitive state first,
and the illuminative and purgative processes happen
automatically.  Then, they are trained together, as a
form of enlightened functioning, as we practice being
enlightened in various situations that are sort of like
tests at the skill of being enlightened within them.

Anyway, on both approaches, emotions had their role.  Thus,
as I said, the ultimate objectivity is a Buddha's insightful
compassion - the SOLE emotion of a Buddha, and thus, the
SINGLE-FOCUSSED INSIGHT of a Buddha (the cognitive
aspect) and SOLE MOTIVE of a Buddha (the moving aspect).

Grigor Vahan Ananikian