<aside> 💡 Update 4/18/24: This article is a bit outdated now that I’ve conducted dozens of guided Deepening sessions. It still holds up surprisingly well in the broad strokes, but the details need to be reworked and reworded to reflect the language people actually use and resonate with in specific locations, regions, and sub-regions.
</aside>
All models are wrong, but some are useful.
I’m a big fan of the above statement, and it 100% applies to the page you’re reading.
This is a map of my own experiences, along with some descriptions from others’ experiences of the awakening process. It isn’t “correct” or “true” in any ultimate sense, but I’ve tried to be as accurate as possible to my own experiences, and the basic shape of it seems to hold true for a lot more people than I expected it to (which might have been a low bar since I only expected it to be accurate for myself 😅).
If another map or model works better for you (such as the Ten Fetters or Zen Circle), then by all means, please ignore my own experiences, and go with that instead. To me, making actual progress on this journey is way more important than what that progress happens to look like at any given moment, and is especially more important than how you interpret that progress.
That said, the more people I’ve talked with who’ve made it to the “far end” of the journey, the more the basic shape of this map seems to hold up. The details are getting fleshed out more and more each day, and there are plenty of surprises to be discovered and nuances to be added, but it does seem to provide some sort of grounding when people can’t tell what they’re going through (which isn’t uncommon when your reality is being dismantled and reconstructed from the ground up). It’s a framework that helps understand the awakening process as a whole as opposed to just focusing on one or a few phases of it to the exclusion of everything else, or elevating any phase over any other as somehow “more superior” or worthy of fixating on (aka staying stuck in forever).
Below you’ll find some basic descriptions of each of the stages of the awakening process. Use the descriptions as progress markers at best, but don’t worry if yours don’t line up exactly with what I’ve written here, or if you seem to skip over some things or have blended versions of them (which plenty of people do and have); more important is the basic shape of progression, that you can orient yourself to the major phases, regions, etc and get an idea for what to expect next, and how you might need to cope with it.
A quick note on some terminology: below I use the word “Position” to label my distinct points of progression, but my experiences at Positions 1-9 happened to line up perfectly with Locations 1-9 of the Martin Matrix. Throughout my awakening I perceived distinct and consistent literal positions inside my nervous system with each shift further, so unlike with the Martin Matrix the phenomena associated with those positions were and are secondary to me; the most important part is their place in the progression.
Now, if this journey is “about” anything, it seems to be about disintegration and reintegration. And it starts with “normal” humanity.
This is where most people on the planet seem to stay for their entire lives. I like Jeffery Martin’s analogy of a bird hopping around for food, alternating between pecking the ground and looking up in case there’s danger or a better food source. That’s a lot like what it feels like pre-awakening, like you can never quite rest, that you can never fully be content; there’s always something you need to do to secure your next fleeting moment of inner peace, and you only hope you can make those moments last longer than the discontent lasts.
Most people are so used to this experience that they don’t even consider it an experience. It’s just what it means to be human.
Before awakening, most people are also usually wrapped up in identities they’ve built over their entire lives, mostly engaging with the world via their identity.
Also, prior to awakening, even very happy people can’t find a sense of peace or equanimity during distressing situations.
I think Jeffery Martin’s research is the best source of information on this part of awakening, so I won’t go into too much detail here.