From my understanding, Bhante V claims that each time a person obtains a path, they enter the cessation of perception and feeling, and then get to watch the operation of dependent origination. As Bhante V spent time practicing in the noting tradition and climbing through the progress of insight, before deciding that it wasn't leading him to whatever he wanted, whatever he means by cessation of perception and feeling, it isn't cessation / fruition.

I have had two ultra-clear experiences involving dependent origination. I observed some kind of anxiety happening associated with my throat, and (unlike every other time up until then) saw how the whole experience of anxiety is a composite created in a step-by-step fashion. After seeing this, there was an enormous reduction in full-body tension...but, it still seemed to me that there was something further I needed to understand, so I looked at my experience for about 10 more seconds, found some remaining tension, and had a repeat of the experience (with similar reduction in full-body tension). At this point it seemed to me there was nothing left that I would be able to analyze, and went on my merry way. I described the outcome of this as there being only "residue" of the gross states such as anxiety that previously occurred for me.

I have had other experiences involving dependent origination since then, but none that were nearly so clear. I have also had lots of shifts since then that did not involve dependent origination, some bigger, some smaller...there was one big one in particular that was very impressive, but impressive in a different way (not causing a further massive reduction in tension).

On the assumption that what I'm talking about is what Bhante V is talking about, it appears I gained two paths back-to-back. I find this fairly unlikely, but theoretically possible. It's also possible that what I'm describing does not meet Bhante V's requirements for seeing dependent origination in operation (for example, I do not remember an experience of the cessation of perception and feeling...though, I was not looking for such a thing, and might have missed it / forgot), and so is not related to paths as he understands them. And it's also possible that paths and this experience of watching dependent origination are not connected in the strict way that Bhante V claims.

On a theoretical level, the suttas say that stream enterers see that "whatever arises is subject to cessation", which could mean cessation / fruition, but could also mean the observation of dependent origination, the description of which emphasizes the causal dependence of one thing on another (so for whatever arises, if the cause stops, the caused thing ceases). They also associate stream entry with the arising of the "Dhamma eye", which makes a lot more sense to me as a description of having seen something about how dependent origination works (which is a fundamental thing in the suttas) rather than a description of something related to cessation / fruition and any things that come from that. But, I know of no explicit evidence from the suttas that later paths are associated with dependent origination in this way.

So, as there is an interest in Bhante V / TWIM here, I think it would be good to document any shifts that are similar to what I described, and whether they were associated with seeing something about dependent origination, or whether they weren't, and also to document any instances of seeing something about dependent origination in a really clear way and whether that caused any shifts. That way, we will be able to get a clearer sense of what Bhante V is referring to in terms of our own frameworks for understanding this stuff, which will be helpful for future practitioners who may be interested in Bhante V / TWIM, or who may be interested in these shifts but practicing in a different tradition.

I recognize that not many people may be able to say much about this from their own experience at the moment, so I would ask that in the future, when relevant experiences occur, that they be added here so that we can have all the data in one place.

Hi End in Sight,

First, a matter of accuracy and citation:
Could you provide the citation for this? If you will continue to use Bhante V's name and to attribute to him claims, then I think it would be beneficial to link to and use his own words. The reasons for doing this are:
[indent]- accurate, clean conduction of another person's chosen words (i.e., no residue, no modifying interpretation)
- transparency of the original words to permit everyone's personal understanding of the original words and context
- personal transparency/discovery (reasons for recruiting another person or views are many)
- preventing erroneous iterations/supporting accurate interations[/indent]
Will this work for you?

(If it turns out for whatever reason that you don't want to build a case for your interpretation on Bhant's V's words, then perhaps you would remove his name and re-establish your point(s) as personal interpretations.)

Second: please confirm that you mean by the words and punctuation of "cessation/fruition" that you view cessation and fruition to be equivalent expressions of a concept of an actual occurrence.
The solidus (/) creates equivalency or choice, as in: "you can use either word 'cessation' or 'fruition' "(equivalent meaning) or "take your pick of the concepts 'cessation' or 'fruition' " (choice between different meanings).

If you would explain what you mean by "cessation/fruition" that will be useful in this thread.

Fourth, the points you're making in this first paragraph (which, responsibly, I assign to you, person of the alias End in Sight, until it is made clear that this is Bhante V's own concept and/or his own wording) seem to be:
[indent]i) paraphrasing your words "[that experiencing cessation of perception and feeling* is followed by seeing the activity of dependent origination]"; and

ii) paraphrasing and reordering your words "cessation/fruition [is not a result of] the noting tradition and climbing through the progress of insight"[/indent]

*And you express not understanding what is meant by these five words(italicized here): "whatever he means by cessation of perception and feeling").


In this paragraph I understand that you have had a reduction in full-body tension as a result of seeing anxiety arising in step-by-step fashion, and that this was one of two experiences you've had wherein you experienced and learned what is meant by "dependent origination" (e.g., your seeing of the step-by-step fashioning of your anxiety so that and that anxiety also eventually associated with the throat).

In relation to the next paragraph (below) something about the above was "so clear". So, this above experience of observing some kind of anxiety associated with the throat clarified for you the concept "dependent origination".

Is it correct to say that this event associated with the throat and anxiety began by applying the mental faculty to watching ("observing some kind of anxiety"), then that this event became physical/interoceptive/body-consciousness ("enormous reduction in full-body tension"), then the mental faculty was re-applied to watch the sensation ("I looked at my experience for about 10 more seconds"), then gave way to release of tension?

Do you still have this "residue" of anxiety which you know to be fashioned step-by-step?


Paragraph 3: more about personally experiencing dependent origination, and introducing shifts, one experience of which did not relate to dependent origination and impressed you.

Para 4: reference to assumption is useful and indicative of uncertainty, the personal observation of which uncertainty can be useful (and you've mentioned a lack of understanding "whatever he means by cessation of perception and feeling"). This paragraph seems to express uncertainty about self-placement within a context of stream-entry.

"I do not remember an experience of the cessation of perception and feeling" is irrelevant. The accurate claim is, "I claim to not have had an experience of cessation of perception and feeling", or "I don't think that I have had an experience of the cessation of perception and feeling". This is important, because claims are based on awareness of having had them, not on a memory of them. To your awareness, you have not had these experiences. Observe how your mind and body feel right now. Is there any impulse or urge or tension?

Again, for sturdy construction, please cite or link at least two suttas when you recruit "suttas" support for a notion ("the suttas say..."). This inclusion i) shows a comfort and preparedness to speak for oneself/one's own conclusions and/or ii) upholds a transparent standard (i.e., allowing others to voice differences). There are fields in which it is sometimes intolerable to have vague supporting documents (e.g., accounting, science experiments, economic theory, coding); building and/or explaining the basis a concept of an experience is not different. At present, people on this site seem to care about details and their authenticity and the site itself is based on a "hardcore" practice of technical details and practicality, therefore if you continue to recruit support for your statements, it will probably be a benefit to include primary sources with links and/or citations.

Ok: in this fifth paragraph you are saying that you've read that stream entry is marked by the knowing of causal dependency.

What do you mean by the "Dhamma eye" other than that it is a) associated with stream-entry (or stream entry?), ii)

What is causing you to see one perspective as "mak[ing] a lot more sense to you as a description of having seen something about how dependent origination works...rather than a description of something related to cessation/fruition"? Can you find this preferential view in the four stages which stages begin with stream entry?

If full-body tension enormously reduced in you upon observing step-by-step causation, but for a residue, can it be said that you are close to cessation, but not there entirely? That when that residue is completely gone, the realization of that practice will be complete (bear its fruit of full cessation, come to fruition)?

Residues may be small, but they are significant indicators in increasingly stilling waters.


What do you think?

[edit: in red]

You misquoted me by leaving out the "From my understanding..." clause.

About stream entry: http://www.dhammasukha.org/Study/Books/Pdf/The%20Anapanasati%20Sutta%202.pdf
About Bhante V and noting: http://www.dhammasukha.org/About/teacher_background.htm
About further paths: I believe I originally saw this quote on the blog begintosee.blogspot.com (or re-posted elsewhere), but it is currently inaccessible. However, Bhante V says that when one obtains the fruition of a path, one sees dependent origination: http://www.dhammatalks.net/Books/Ven_Vimalaramsi_THE_GREAT_DISCOURSE_ON_ORIGINATION.htm

Maybe someone else who has read through Bhante V's material (of which there is a lot) can find a cite for "cessation of perception and feeling before seeing dependent origination".




The two are linked. See MCTB for a reference for my meaning.




As I made it clear that I am describing my understanding of someone else's position, and the purpose of this post was to obtain evidence for or against that position, I am not sure why you would do this.



As you may know, there are at least two attainments that may or may not be the cessation of perception and feeling as described in the suttas; one described in MCTB / the Visuddhimagga, one claimed as similar but with some manner of experience occurring during it.



No...I observed the experience and saw how it in particular was created (also recognizing at the time or perhaps slightly afterwards that negative experiences in general were created in this manner), and after seeing that, the experience, along with an enormous amount of full-body tension, disappeared. And then, about 10 seconds later, the process was repeated.



It is hard to say at the moment.

But, apart from anxiety, there is a residue of *something* which I see is fashioned step-by-step, but I cannot see the detail in as precise a way as I know is possible



Uncertainty with respect to Bhante V's model of the paths (which is what this post was about...understanding how Bhante V's model relates to people's experiences).



I do not remember an experience of that event occurring at the time, and make no further substantive claims about what happened at the time.



I am able to obtain what MCTB / the Visuddhimagga describe, as well as the thing which appears to have no perception or feeling but is still an experience.

I was only able to obtain the latter after the event I described (when I looked for it, one day later I believe). The former came somewhere around MCTB 3rd path.




Yes, and further, there is perception (required to read your post), which indicates that I am not in the cessation of perception and feeling right now.



"The suttas" is a collection, and my statement would be true if there were only one sutta that claimed such a thing. Here is one: http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/vin/mv/mv.01.23.01-10.than.html

There are more, but that is not a claim that I care to support, but rather, an invitation to look if you're interested.



I have no idea; I don't use the term, the suttas do.



At stream entry, one is supposed to have a deeper understanding of the dharma, and linking this "dhamma eye" term to being able to discern the workings of dependent origination (i.e. being able to see the "regularity of the dhamma", http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/sn/sn12/sn12.020.than.html) makes sense to me.

By saying it "makes a lot more sense to me" I indicated that I do not hold any strong position regarding my statement, i.e. it is just a guess at the moment, which seems plausible to me, but which may well not be true.



Cessation of what?

Very interesting.

I just wanted to make two generic comments. First of all, if fruition is what it is, then it would theoretically be impossible to see the working of dependent origination in action, as in fruition all twelve links of dependent origination would have ceased, causing a momentary "click" in the momentum of existence, eventually causing all twelve links to cease in entirety later, my speculation.

Thus there would be no phenomenal thing to observe the arising and passing of the twelve links of dependent origination.

Also what is meant in the suttas by stream enterers observing the arising and passing of things is just part of the theoretical construct of Buddhism. Acc. Buddhism all things that arise (come into existence at some point), must pass. Therefore the Absolute or what i incorrectly call Nibbana will never pass away, because it was unoriginated.

That's what they mean when they say formations, formations are just things that arose at some point. But the word can have different meanings, lawl.

As you appear to disagree with Bhante V, I would ask you to add any experiential data you obtain in the future related to observing dependent origination clearly (and any changes that produced or didn't produce in you) to this thread, so that we can see whether his position is supported by the experiences of others.

Has anyone asked Bhante V about all of this?

Some questions (1 and 2 being the most important for this thread, I think):

1. Could you explain further what you saw? What exactly were the steps involved in the creation of anxiety? What did you perceive when you saw them? (i.e. how did you know you were seeing these steps?)

2. What were you doing at the time this occurred? And were you intending to see this process or did it happen spontaneously?

Some other questions:

3. How did this experience subsequently affect your sense of self, your experience of the "attention wave", or the clarity of your sense perceptions? Did it affect your personality or cognitive abilities?

4. Could you briefly summarize what kind of practices led up to this experience? Do you know what the important factors were that led you to this? (e.g. achieving MCTB paths, noting practice, metta, jhana, having PCEs, ...)




5. Do you know what made the difference? And what do you mean by clarity exactly?


You may have answered these before to some extent; if so would you mind either restating or referring us to the appropriate threads?


[Actually, I think it would be very helpful to have a section of the wiki somewhere where individuals who have made substantial progress in their practice would explain their practice history, most significant experiences, their understanding of the dhamma or other frameworks, what they felt has been most effective for them, and so on. A database of case studies.]

"From your understanding" is where your effort would effectively start and stop, your admittedly not knowing "whatever he [Bhante V] means by cessation of perception and feeling", End in Sight.

End in Sight: You want to obtain evidence for or against a monastic's position which position you admittedly do not understand?
Perhaps order your inquiry by beginning with understanding Bhante's own words[1] which he uses to explain his position. This is basic legwork.

Otherwise,without understanding any position, the position of another (Bhante V's, in your case) is merely striving to create the illusion of someone else's position (about which "to obtain evidence for or against") when the position is yours. In this actuality, it becomes clear that you have two ideas ('positions") in your conceptual mind, about which you are unclear; thus, you open this thread to help understand your two positions. This I think would be a useful, candid starting point.

If you still wish to cite Bhante V as the position-holder, then the citations required by basic secondary school essay writing suffice. Below data-deluging is typical of companies that want to fatigue FOIA requests and forensic accountants. It is a worn-out diversion.



[1] This point is remarkable: you ascribe a position to Bhante V, you admit to not understanding his point, and now you hope someone else will find a citation for Bhante V that supports your claim of Bhante V's claim.


As to not remembering cessation/fruition, the acceptability of such a "do not remember" harkens to Regan's Iran-Contra playbook: you opaquely straddle the did happen/did not happen concept of "cessation/fruition":

End in Sight, if we are to continue, please speak for yourself from your experience, use language you understand to explain concepts you understand or want to illuminate in a group setting, e.g., reference not concepts like "Dhamma eye" as "making much more sense to you" when you can only say to explain dhamma eye:

If I see a tree I can describe it.

If your subject is stream entry and a) seeing dependent origination or b) "cessation/fruition", we can discuss that: here again is my question about your solidus-joined words:
[indent]Second: please explain what you mean by the words and punctuation of "cessation/fruition" that you view cessation and fruition to be equivalent expressions of a concept of an actual occurrence. [stuck through as I've changed the words "please confirm that" to ask for you definition]
The solidus (/) creates equivalency or choice, as in: "you can use either word 'cessation' or 'fruition' "(equivalent meaning) or "take your pick of the concepts 'cessation' or 'fruition' " (choice between different meanings). [/indent]

If you want to discuss in your own words and experiences your life after the arising of equanimity and that which is called stream-entry, then I am interested. And if you want to refer to a specific buddhist scripture that may contradict your experience or support it, then please cite it/those.


Edit: added "[1]"
2x edit: in brackets regarding "cessation/fruition"

The residue of anxiety you mention,

Bhante V / dependent origination / paths
1/1/12 11:36 AM Reply Reply with Quote
I think that residue is very good starting point for considering what is cessation and what is fruition. For example, why hasn't this residue fully extinguished? The residue seems to me to be a useful flag, a key to the cessation of the anxiety you mention. That key could be said to bear the fruit of cessation.

1x edit: typo

The plain meaning of the original post, as I understand it, is to see whether a very clear experience of observing dependent origination is related to an immediate shift in experience (and what kind of shift), and to see whether there can be an immediate shift in experience along those lines without an very clear experience of observing dependent origination, by asking people to contribute data from their own current or future experience.

Bhante V clearly states that seeing dependent origination plays into the paths (as he models the paths), stream entry explicitly and other paths implicitly (though, as I said, I believe I have seen the explicit claim about all the paths but cannot locate it at the moment ) and to the extent that you doubt this, you are free to read his work to confirm or deny it. (Ctrl + F helps)

If you would like to contribute data to this, that would be great. If not, that's OK. If you want to talk about what is an appropriate standard for citation, or talk about whether and why someone might disclaim knowledge about particular experiences that other authors describe in less detail than I would prefer and whether that's acceptable, or things along that line, I do not see that as a worthwhile use of my time, so I will pass.

(EDIT: To clarify my meaning here, I am not dismissing you, but simply pointing out this: we could discuss those subjects for quite a while, spending a great deal of time on it, and yet not accomplish anything that pertains to the request in this thread (to collect data), nor to anyone's practice. I don't see the value in that, and so am not interested in pursuing it.)

* tension
* 'attention'
* representational experience

Which I link to craving, clinging, and becoming in the Pali suttas.



I knew that I was seeing the components of anxiety because, at the end of the process (at the peak of the representational experience), it was clear to me that I typically called the whole thing "anxiety".

These experiences did not have a separator between them, but it seemed to me upon reflection that they could be naturally divided into three different things with different properties.



I wasn't meditating, and just turned my attention to the phenomenon of this tension anxiety whatever thing associated with my throat, and (unlike previous times) had this novel-to-me experience of observing that. I wasn't looking for it in particular.



Briefly, after this, all experiences associated with the attention wave were reduced to "residue", and yet the attention wave continued (at times, just as salient as ever before, albeit still only as "residue").



In brief, lots of noting / hardcore vipassana (to MCTB 4th path), a bit of Kenneth Folk's Direct Mode, lots more hardcore vipassana (including Nick's "actualizing jhanas" practice, done as vipassana), switching at some point to a more generic panoramic (less analytical or detailed) attention to everything during daily life, to whatever extent that I could maintain that.

PCEs were stuck in there somewhere, one aimed at directly, the rest as a coincidental byproduct of vipassana.




I think there is some developmental factor that determines how clear the experience is and what it leads to. As far as clarity, the experience I described had a pedagogical quality to it...was like a schoolmarm presenting the process in a way suited to a very slow learner.



That is an interesting idea, but what do you think it would accomplish? It seems to me that it would encourage people to imitate the practices of others, which may not be ideal if their own strengths and weaknesses do not match those of the person they're trying to imitate.

representational of what exactly? is there any point in me trying to understand this in any way other than direct experience?



do you have any idea of anything that contributed to the sudden clarification in this specific case of turning attention to the anxiety? i suppose i can't try to clone your experience or understanding or anything like that...

btw: it is also in Bhante V's anapanasati sutta talk where he states that seeing dependent origination is responsible for all four paths.



as for data, nothing yet

Could you expand a bit? Are you saying you perceived something like:

a. tension: the perception of sensations we usually identify with physical, muscular tension or stress

b. attention: The mind shifting its focus to different features of experience (sensory or mental experience).

c. representational experience: The perception of ideas, concepts or mental images, as opposed to only sense-data. (e.g. the idea of a table instead of the physical sensations that make up one's perception of a table)

However as written it's not obvious why one would interpret the above as craving, clinging, or becoming. What were the objects of attention, or features of the process, which would cause you to make this interpretation? (You said your experience was "ultra-clear", after all.)




6. Are you saying they didn't seem to occur in any particular order, or were occurring simultaneously? Or some combination?

7. Why would the observation of this process lead to its abatement? Was there a recognition that this is a process that was unhelpful, something that you did not have to do or engage in, and so you stopped doing it?




That's very interesting, because Bhante V. has stated that the shift occurs when one comes out of "the cessation of perception and feeling" and sees dependent origination ("The Anapanasati Sutta 2.pdf", pg. 94):






I think it would provide some concrete information about the effect of different practices, so that people can make more informed decisions about what they should spend their time doing.

I think one outcome would be the opposite of what you're predicting: e.g. if someone finds that vipassana (a widely lauded practice in this community) doesn't agree with them, they might find some evidence that other practices (such as TWIM) can lead positive results as well, and so feel less compelled to attempt to imitate the experiences of others despite their personal inclinations.

There are many teachers and many practices out there, but little concrete, well-organized evidence documenting what effects their practices have. In the absence of controlled experiments, I think a collection of case studies is the best way to develop a knowledge base about this. (This discussion should probably be in a separate thread.)

See the next post, but, in brief, I can't find anything better to call it besides 'being' (the representation of a gross sense of identity / is-ness...among other things).



My guess is that it will happen by itself after one puts in enough meditation time, and there isn't a cause besides that. I didn't do anything special at that moment. But, this is what this thread will hopefully eventually clarify for us.



Thanks for the reference.

Tension: take a gross desire such as lust (either when one lusts from afar or when one lusts during a sexual experience) and identify the tension involved in it. Is "craving" not an extremely apt description of that tension? If so, examine other tensions in context of what can be learned from analyzing lust in this way, and see whether "craving" is also apt there.

The tensions in question for me tend to manifest along the midline. Different kinds of anxiety, for instance, give rise to prominent tensions in the throat or stomach or solar plexus or...

'Attention': the thing that is apparently able to be moved around and placed on one object or another object is not the same as whatever (mostly background?) mental process governs what the mind notices or not. Thus, 'attention', not attention. I saw that this phenomenon of 'attention' is involved in the creation of these experiences...merely one more fabricated thing, which need not be present.

Representational experience: there are lots of flavors of representational qualities. If you consider the case of hearing something, you may be able to notice that slightly after the sensory experience happens, there is a mental "echo" of the sound (I believe MCTB describes this). So, in one way, the echo represents the sensory experience. But, there are additional representational qualities: one may notice that the idea that the heard thing is an object of the process of perception originates here, as well as (part of) the idea that one is a subject experiencing the heard thing. So it is linked to a gross experience of identity-making, and "becoming" is apt too.

A more practical way to think of it is to consider it a spatiotemporally extended daydream...over every experience there is a daydream about that experience superimposed. Hearing a sound, there is a daydream "echo" (over the sound); experiencing pain in the hand, there is a daydream of one's hand hurting (over the hand), experiencing pleasure, there is a daydream of the pleasure feeling good (over the pleasurable sensation).

These experiences happen fairly quickly in everyday life, and many gross experiences are composites of *multiple* instances of this process running (e.g. anxiety that makes one feel motivated to do some specific thing is different from anxiety that makes one feel vulnerable, and this distinction depends on multiple overlapping or partially-overlapping threads of this process which differ between the two instances), but the "point" of the experience I described was not in seeing how all different variations of experience are constructed, but in seeing one single instance of one simple experience decomposed.

About 'attention': note that whatever object one places 'attention' on, a representational experience of that object is exaggerated. If the representational experience is a kind of identity-making (becoming), then calling this 'attention' phenomenon "clinging" is quite apt...one clings to a phenomenon and generates an identity around it.

(EDIT: It may be important to keep in mind that discerning all this requires practice, and is probably not going to be obvious until parts of it can be looked at directly. It was not obvious to me at MCTB 4th path, and it only became slowly obvious to me as I continued to look at things, up until this "clear" experience of it.)

(EDIT 2: It strikes me that understanding that the "daydream" is representational is why some traditions emphasize attitudes like "don't-know mind" (modern Zen?), "naivete" (actualism)...ways to keep from aggravating the process that generates it.)



I just meant that they had no "tag" that separated them, but (as they are all different from each other) I think the distinction I've drawn between them is fairly natural and obvious. I wanted to highlight that to be clear about what the experience was like.

They occurred in order, but with overlap.



I have no idea why. I observed it and it stopped (leaving "residue"). There was nothing volitional about it.



I can enter a state that appears to qualify as "cessation of perception and feeling" (but not the same as in MCT, and there is a subtlety to being able to recognize that (after it ends) I was in it. If it happened for a split-second during normal life, and I wasn't examining my experience right then, I doubt I would notice. So, it's quite possible I didn't notice it at the time. I gained access to that state only after this.

So, Bhante V may be right. On the other hand, I don't know exactly how he defines cessation of perception and feeling (there are many things that might qualify: cessation at the end of the progress of insight, NS according to MCTB, maybe this thing I'm talking about, maybe something else entirely...).



One difficulty is that people on the DhO are likely to be quite similar in terms of practice (which is why they congregate on the DhO rather than elsewhere).

Feel free to start another thread about this if you like, and see if there's interest in it.

Data Point

I've had one experience that I think is like the one you had. I've talked about it before on the forum, but I'll re-cap here. Summary is: I think I did see dependent origination, but I do not think it led to a 'path'.

I was meditating with my eyes open, not doing anything special in particular. I had been thinking about whether a state was possible in which there was no perception whatsoever, yet that wasn't an MCTB-fruition - whether one could take "cessation of perception and feeling" literally yet still have experience of some kind. This was just something I had been ruminating about at the time. I was kind of trying to find it, but had no idea how. I also considered that 'being' would vanish in the state (since no perception meant no 'being', I figured), and it would arise when coming out of it, and that arising would be highly valuable to perceive clearly.

I started going into formless open-eye jhanas as I understood them then: not very hard (no blocking of sensory input), just taking on a perspective of space, consciousness, etc. I was staring at a hardwood floor and there was pretty gross/coarse tension in the back of my head. Suddenly, perception started getting very weird. A pattern of the hardwood floor stuck out, and started reduplicating until it filled my entire visual field (so even though my eye was capable of seeing the white wall at the end of the room, it was only seeing hardwood-floor). Then this hardwood-floor-only visual field broke down even more until it was an undifferentiated white mass. The tension in the back of my head suddenly got dislocated, shifting down until it felt like it was the center of everything - no more sense of the body at all, just the tension in the center of the universe. Then even that tension (and the rest of 'being' as I understand it) disappeared, and that is what I consider the entrance to the state.

Unlike what Bhante V describes, I was well aware I was in a state, so that might very well be evidence that it wasn't what he calls "cessation of perception and feeling". It was immaculately relaxing. No speck of suffering anywhere that I could discern. I could have resided there forever. (Edit: it also might be possible that being in the state proper was a period of not knowing, but couched by an experience of not the state proper yet still no 'being' before + after. I'm still not entirely sure what was going on visually, for example, though I know precisely what happened right before + right after, visually.)

What happened next was a feeling of release. Even when not doing such weird things, if I focus on the body or the head, I get sensations like bubbles popping, which I understand to be the release of tension. What happened now is that 'being' came back but only manifesting as what felt like a huge release coming from the middle of everything (that 'tension'). Then 'being' faded again back into the state, then 'being' came back online again, and what followed was quite amazing (I figured that the thing I was looking for happened and really wanted to see the next bit clearly):

there was the first bit of 'being', a little pang somewhere. then another pang, in a seemingly-unrelated location, yet what was obviously and clearly a reaction to the first pang. then a third pang, and a fourth, each one clearly reacting to the previous pangs, ping-ping-ping-ping-ping. as this happened, experience started getting more complicated - vision started coming back, out of whatever-the-state-was into whiteness, then seeing forms again. Together with this, hearing came back online (though I hadn't even realized it faded), out of a don't-know-what, into an undifferentiated static mass, then gaps appearing in the static (which was the actual silence of the room), etc., until I was back where I started from wondering "wtf was that?"

It didn't feel like a path, though. The big release was nice, and seeing the state gave me renewed interest and confidence cause it was so suffering-free. And I'm pretty sure that was Dependent Origination coming back on-line (along with the rest of the senses).

Sorry to break the flow of the discussion, but I wanted to highlight this line because it's a really, really useful way to think about what you're describing. Nice one.

This may provide some additional info on the Bhante V / Dhamma Sukha approach. It was posted by Sister Khema on their email list just recently:



2 things that struck me were the mention of 9 jhanas, and Mahasi having 16 stages. That seems at odds with what I thought was correct (that there were 16 stages of insight according to the Visuddhimagga but they didn't appear in the original texts, and that there were 8 jhanas) -- the rest I'll leave for you to discuss - it's a great discussion, but not one I can contribute much to.

Totally. I find that concept a really useful "leverage concept" - a concept, idea or thought that can easily lead one to experience reality more directly with less fabrication. It's something I find a top notch practice instruction for really smacking moment to moment avidya in the chops - "what lies underneath this daydream?" Although I prefer to use the words "all fabrication".

Nice!

EiS

Anxiety. Residues. ["residues" you mention having]



This writing on personal knowledge is clear and that clarity is useful.

This is the difference between conceiving dependent origination, then experiencing fruition, then having cessation. In this sequence residues extinguish. If sensate awareness (exact now apt application of mental faculty) is not accessible, then there is an obstructive restlessness (an objectless or uncertain tension like needing to go for a drive (versus just taking a drive)) or some kind of object/cognitive tension. For myself, I needed time to go through some well-developed (if not conclusive) thinking to see why I was holding to cognitive objects. My first powerful suite of these (understanding dependent origination, fruition, cessation) occurred like this: understanding causality, then feeling the release in fruition, and then knowing cessation (seeing an unretrievable former usage of the mental faculty). Residues - a "gross [or fine] experience of identity-making" - are equivalent to me: there is something preventing sensate liveliness, tugging to be seen, waiting to be causally understood, cracked, then ceas[ing of its own substance-lessness]. It is a great way to see each moment without striving. Some tension, some residue: return to senses and what is apt now. Unable to return to senses(nagging residual tension? obvious gross tension?): study the causality of that residual or gross tension. (restless? tense? disappointment? irritation? nervousness? lonely?). Repeat.

2x edit: spelling and clarifying a series
3x edit: the jhanic experience of fruition shows itself in the mental faculty landscape, so a vocabulary of mental landscape is used, but dependent origination, fruition, cessation still occur there too.
4x edit: clarity
5x: verb change for accuracy!
6: brackets regarding the anxiety you mention having

Was there any major shift that you think it led to?



Were you able to observe the process of these experiences being formed (in terms of component parts) in more detail than previously?

Not as far as I can tell... if there was a shift it would have been that big moment of release I talked about, but it didn't seem to be a path-like shift.



Yes. It was crystal clear how they formed. Within 5-10 seconds I was already lamenting the fact that I could not see the formation of the experiences as clearly as I was able to as it first came on-line. I still haven't had as clear a picture of it as those few moments.