The purpose of this work is to explain what Gradual Awakening means and how it can be attained - and to offer a way of thinking about Awakening that is clear and understandable - so that you will know that Awakening is genuine and possible.
In the earliest records we have of what the Buddha taught, the Path of Awakening is said to progress through four stages, four levels, culminating at the Fourth Level in the attainment of Nibbana (Nirvana). We call this the "Gradual Path" to distinguish it from the one-stage "sudden illumination" attained by the Buddha himself and embraced by later forms of Buddhism.
Despite the centrality of the Four Levels of Awakening to the Buddha's original teaching, we are told next to nothing about the Second & Third Levels: we learn only that they represent first the "reduction" and then the "elimination" of "greed & hatred." The Early Texts do not explain what these descriptions might mean, or what they imply for the practitioner. These omissions effectively operate as an impassable barrier to progress after First Level.
Indeed, nothing can be found, ancient or modern, that offers a first-hand account of what the higher levels of Gradual Awakening mean in experience, or guidance as to how to practice to attain them, or an explanation as to what they are, and how and why they unfold as they do. That is what this work represents: an empirical description of the unfolding of Gradual Awakening, together with a scientific hypothesis to explain it, and instructions for realizing it yourself.
The author claims to have attained the first three of the Four Levels of Awakening. This is a bold claim. While there are many people who have reached the First Level, and a handful who purport to be Fully Awake, there is no one who claims to have attained the Second & Third Levels and discusses their experience in detail, explaining how they got there and what it means to be there. It is one of the notable features of this work that the author is able to speak to the nature of the Second & Third Levels of Awakening from his own direct experience.
On the basis of this experience, the author has developed a scientific hypothesis to explain how and why the Gradual Path unfolds as it does. This is the hypothesis of the Four Ego Formations. The hypothesis maintains that Gradual Awakening progresses by deconstructing and eliminating the "ego" that develops through the process of self building during infancy and early childhood. The Four Ego Formations represent four fundamental convictions about the way things are. Alas, these convictions are false. It is these false convictions that give rise to the suffering of life - what the Buddha called dukkha.
The Gradual Path unfolds by correcting the fundamental misconceptions that constitute the Four Ego Formations, and eliminating the unhappiness they cause. This is the essence of practice on the Gradual Path: reteaching the mind what it originally mislearned. The author thus maintains that Awakening is not a spiritual fantasy, but a scientifically respectable example of neuroplasticity, the brain's ability to change in response to new learning.
The author's account is resolutely scientific. He sets to one side the supernatural teachings that are so prominent in the Early Texts. He also ignores their ascetic teachings, asceticism being neither a cause nor an effect of progress in Awakening.
In short, this work is intended as a worldly (non-ascetic), secular (non-religious) and scientific (non-supernatural) description and explanation of the unfolding of Gradual Awakening, here & now, in the author's own experience.
