My wife just got stream entry this week and I'm not sure what advice to give her. It sure is a huge relief for her after being 10 months in the dark night and having do deal with life threatening medical conditions. Two dark night yogis living 25 000 km appart having to face the hardship of life is certainly challenging but we managed to make progress despite (and thanks to) of that.

I do claim stream entry but I didn't get any of the more fancy perks like being able to recreate frutions. The second dark night has been very challenging so I'm tempted to give her some words of caution.

It took some time for my wife to understand that she really needed to warp this up, at first believing that vipassana lended linear improvements and not being interested in Enlightenment. But when she practice she progress extremely fast and now that she got stream entry, she is really into vipassana. That's the advantage of growing up outside away from the TV.

Some people advice holding on it for a while. On the other hand, the mind is very strong and there is good momentum soon after SE. From my personnal experience, there is also a great deal of momentum after the A&P and someone can rise to Equanimity pretty fast. If you don't take this opportunity, you find yourself being a chronic dark night yogi.

What are the advantage of waiting before going for the 2nd A&P? Is it a good time to practice concentration? Sara live in Chiang Mai so she might be able to find a samathi teacher. The temple she go to only teach vipassana and the monks there are very cryptic. I cannot instruct her on how to recreate frutions or explore with the powers, as suggested in MCTB since I know none of this stuff.

Enjoy life and be a good person would be my suggestion. After SE, my personal experience is that the notion of "going for a path" or even "practicing jhana" is somewhat counter productive, but at this point I wouldn't go as far as directly cautioning. I would advise maintaining a harmonious sitting schedule based on the individual and circumstances, and try to perfect the art of accepting the things that life brings one's way with joy, happiness, in a loving and compassionate way that benefits everyone.

So ADR you would throw away the current practice that had gotten you to SE and instead change your practice to - what exactly do you call this? And how long do you suggest this shift in practice? From your experience what was your benefit from this change in practice? Is this something you did?

What are the advantage of delaying progress, beside looking for a better timing, considering that progress is inevitable and the more difficult stages will come sooner or later?

I remember an urge to progress soon after SE and it's clear my wife is having that urge right now. Should someone ride that urge full throttle?

Once in the DN, concentration practice are debilating. Should someone pump up concentration in the early stages, to have some lubricant once in the DN? Is anything beyond the 4th jhanas useful for progress?

There is also the possibility of Meta practice, but that surely requires serious commitment to make a difference. That could bring some tranquility greatly welcome in the DN.

I wouldn't necessarily say what I said is a shift in practice, but rather a shift in perspective. I was really into reaching this or that "jhana" after SE and wasted a lot of time theorizing about maps and the like. That has brought me to a place where I really honestly can't access any recognizable state or stage of anything, so this current perspective is likely coloring what I suggested.

Practice wise, I am doing much of the same things I did right after stream entry in terms of what my daily life looks like, practice regimen, etc. I would like to say that there have been some subtle nuanced shifts in how I related to people, things, etc, but these would be hard to describe exactly.

I too had a strong urge to practice after SE. I don't know what to recommend on this honestly.

When it comes to the middle paths, my perspective is no amount of what I think of with the word "practice" is going to help "get you anywhere." My line of reasoning is that it is better to be content being nowhere, doing nothing, to take more of a Zen perspective.

Also Simon, you might take a look at the notion of care and concern you have for your wife's progress in terms of attachment. My recommendation is that whenever you think about your wife and wonder/speculate as to how to help her that you do so mindfully and without hesitation. Otherwise this is just food for the dark night. This is something I continue to work with myself.

And..there I go contradicting my own piece of advice to not caution against things.

It became an interesting cautionary tale on the wisdom of encouraging meditation or not. I still had a romantized view of vipassana when I did so at first, believing it was possible to get some benefits without going all the way.To be honest, it was entirely selfish to encourage her to do so, hoping I wouldn't be as much victim of her mood swings . I realized how much of a commitment the path is when she had to deal with the heavy stuff of the dark night or the cognitive impairment of equanimity. Now she is very grateful about what she found but not so long ago she regretted to even have began the practice at all.

My encouragements surely helped her to get through it but the most important perk of SE is that now you know what to do so she don't need much guidance anymore. I sometimes joke with her that she needs to learn this so she can teach me after. Isn't that the dream of every man, an arahant wife?

Advantage of waiting- Multiple cycles leading to fruitions. She should be cycling in review so she should be having fruitions. She can look closely at the exit and entry point and see what there is to see and master the recreating of this triggering of a fruition. Fruitions are fun but ultimately they get a little boring after a while. Mastering the review stages of insite are also nice. Moving thru them quickly lets you explore them in detail without being so stuck in them.
Disadvantage of waiting- In my experience you get a boost of power and concentration after a path moment. This fades over a month til you are where your new normal is. You can use this boost to get second path insites going and possibly move thru them quickly. No guarantees of course. The other disadvantage is that you loose the ability to call up 1st path fruitions when working on second path so set a time length on second path practice as mahasi advises.Look at page 42


With the path boost of power/concentration you can make rapid progress in the Jhana's if you wish. Meditating on anything static tends to do the trick. Pick a mantra or kasina object or pick up a book on the topic (search on jhana and you will find stuff here too)
If Sara keeps practicing, things will no doubt happen as they are supposed to. The only thing I would advise against is stop practicing and do nothing and waste the boost of energy.

I suppose so...I would rather just get it done myself though and leave the wife part to sort itself out cause I don't have energy for a relationship at the moment.

Having screwed around stuck for 2 years after SE I kinda lean towards full throttle. After second path I have been throttling it and seem to have got to EQ in a month....This makes me say go for it...but I am sure there are cautionary tales out there too.
Do what you intuition tells you ...then you can only yell at your intuition later

Reading the Practical Insight Meditation chapter you linked to, it seems to explain a few things about my practice. After SE, I pushed hard for the next path off-cushion and I never noticed the stages 1-3 but recognized the A&P stage quite early. If I understand correctly, Mahasi suggests that if you go right away for the next path, you start in the A&P stage. Then you can get up to Equanimity pretty fast but fail to land path as you didn't practice getting fruition in review, something also consistent with my experience.

It's like riding a bicycle. You already got some speed from SE and up to the A&P you are going down hill. That speed help you climb the hill that is the dark night but you don't have the power to pedal the few last 100 meters so you get stuck there or worse, you get back down the hill and then you no longer have the speed nor the quadriceps to climb it.

Reread it again,
to me it seems to say that at worst you get off the bike and slowly haul the bike the last 100 meters..."Possibly it may last a day to months to years"

"Vagueness is almost as bad as that other thing" - Someone

After stream entry.. enjoy life have some fun. After that when you're ready to go... go! Don't delay trying to squeeze some stuff in between, that feels fear based to me. Your wife is a master meditator and will go through it all very quickly.

Last... best remedy for dark night is... friends, movies, ice cream, bubble baths ;)

-d

My stream entry honeymoon only lasted a few days. I have been like a bat out of hell ever since I took a huge hit of DMT which ripped my crown open almost two years ago now. I have been motivated by scenes in my mind of society collapsing and my parents' house overgrown and dead bodies all over. When you constantly fear something like that you don't really give yourself time to take a break. Unfortunately this has led to my having problems getting out and doing conventional things very successfully, but I guess that is a work in progress.

Hence my practice suggestions tend to lean toward less intellectual, more relaxed, as my tendency to be the opposite has often led me into unnecessary suffering. But really its anyone's game.

So you wait for the bus.

Simon,

I just read this portion of Mahasi's book the other day, and this is generally my recollection as well. (Although I didn't catch the part about failing to get second path because you didn't practice fruititions, I will have to look again for that).

The crucial thing, that stood out to me, was Mahasi saying that you can get 2nd path pretty quickly, but then 3rd path might take longer because you have to 'master concentration.'

So personally, for me, I believe that I attained stream entry, but am not 100% sure. I am going to continue to either practice fruititions/go for the first fruition for a while, and then push diligently for second path just focusing on the vipassana. If second path can be attained relatively quickly according to Mahasi, then that further reduction in suffering is worth pushing for immediately in my opinion. After that, concentration practice. I can focus more on metta or kasinas then. I don't know, but that is how I read Mahasi.

But anyways, right on with reviewing Practical Insight Meditation. I have found that returning to Mahasi Sayadaw's instructions has been the most effective way forward with my dry-insight vipassana practice.

I wanted to send a private message the message system is broken. Are you still in Myanmar? I'm curious to know what temple you have been to.

simontanguay at gmail dot com

skype: jackinbox78

I'm not Nikolai lol. I'm still happy to answer questions on here or email if you have them.

-d