Hey all.

From hitting SE back in July, on Friday I think did MCTB 4th path, done is what had to be done. (Prior to this I have been sitting daily for probably 2-3 years). Basically I noted my way to 1st and 2nd, exactly like in MCTB, then switched to a truckload of other practices, basically anything that felt creative and useful. Namely self-inquiry, visiting a non-dual guru type, tarin's way of doing 2nd, creative writing exercises, watching loads of youtube, books, artistic self-belief exercises, meditative contemplation of sutras and writings (in a koan-like way), magick, going on phase of spiritual tourism, a bit of mahasi noting and choiceless awareness, and a lot of walking around doing my own imagination practices.

Finally on Friday I feel like I fully realized that "in the seen, only the seen, has always ever been only the seen, will always ever be only the seen, for everyone, whether enlightened or not", I could understand fully what it means to say "everyone is enlightened, whether they realise it yet or not", at that moment something popped, and my state since then has been characterised by a seemingly total lack of sense of agency (no-ONE in particular trying to do anything, just many instances of doing), lack of ability to really believe in any idea or thought of "doer", and a sudden and total drop away of the huge existential seeking drive which dominated my life for the past 3-5 years. And also zero self-conflict drag, despite being in stressful or indecisive situations. The word mindfulness as understood previously just doesn't make sense anymore. I am 80% sure it's done, but open to accept ideas that it isn't and I am tricking myself.

Why I am I writing this? Well I do quite like talking about myself But seriously I feel there is a lot of a value in posting achievements, esp quick one or ones that use different techniques, as it inspires others into what's possible out there.

but also aware that I wrote a bit on what I think was My SE experience and noone replied at all, which led me to believe that I guess what I wrote wasn't particularly useful or interesting to anyone... so I will put it out there, is anyone remotely interested in hearing anything about my experience? (it's ok if you're not )

1. does anyone want to ask questions to check out/diagnose/ see if I am deluding myself? I would really welcome/appreciate this.
2. My approach was pretty eclectic and I feel that all the tools I pulled off the shelf helped smash this thing, so maybe there might be somethings in there for people.
3. I see now that for me, the core of this thing was really all about self-belief, and the techniques are relevant only in they suited my mind and my belief system, and created the chance for insight to occur. I think that some practitioners could do with more tools to work with their belief systems.
4. I think it's all a very interesting story, as it happened to me! but then I would think that

and thank you to everyone here, very heartfelt! as I am feeling full of gratitude right now. especially those here who post a lot and Daniel for MCTB.
Much love, Anthony

Give it a year, or at least a month or two before claiming this and that.

Nick

Ditto what Nik said - after some pretty fast progress through the earlier paths, I believed I had landed 4th path for about 18 months before my doubts + someone telling me to my face that I hadn't made me accept otherwise. It was a miserable and painful experience, but on reflection it was also worth its weight in gold for all the suffering it revealed around petty status-associations and all the other blatently self-centred garbage that comes with the idea of attainment. It also made me re-examine my practice afresh, and what it really meant to me. (why am I doing all this?)

Regardless, it sounds like your practice is moving along well and you've no lack of enthusiasm, so good job. stay curious!

Dan

Do you have an off button for your sarcasm?

Congrats.

I made a progress at a similar (slightly faster ) pace when I started. So know it is possible, and can relate.

It can be a quite heady when things are happening so fast.

The best advice is don't take the the enlightenment stuff too seriously.

A couple of years down the line I read my old writing with and smirk at how much of it was spiritual bypassing.

As you continue to grow, I suspect you might do the same with yours. It is a normal part of gaining spiritual maturity.

what is your understanding and experience of "awareness", "luminosity", "source", "being" now?

May I ask how old are you? It seems that people that make fast progress are fairly young and don't have their mind full of broken dreams.

Beside that, could you tell us more about the non-orthodox methods you used, how did you choose them at any specific moment (like creative writing, what is the approach in regards to mindfulness), etc.

Pawel, I really enjoyed this comment, it made me laugh for so many reasons!

Dan, Nik thanks for the advice I will just keep trying to follow the shape of practice and keep an eye on things and see, and not run round claiming everywhere (in real life I don't have anyone to tell about this sort of thing who would be interested anyhow!).

And sorry if my post seems brash, it was well-'intentioned'. I wondered if it might be unsuitable but then thought, well, it is a section called "claims to attainments".

'Stay curious' is excellent advice!
cheers, Anthony

Simon, excuse me for saying this, it is done with good intent. But it seems to me that you are trying to confirm further in yourself a belief that can only keep you down? What/who would you be without that belief?

With regards to writing, other sources, etc, after seeing comments above, I don't want to blag on about what I did, before some time passes, but one book I found helped phenomenally is the Artist's Way by Julia Cameron, it's a book about motivation and self-belief to unlock one's full creative potential, and it's structured in the form of a 12 week course with exercises each week. It address exactly your post. With much love, Anthony

Thanks D Z is your account of it all online anywhere? I looked up spiritual bypassing, as I didn't know what it meant!
Yeah, basically my whole life has been spent trying to bypass reality into something else which would be be more satisfying somehow!! thanks for the nice words. Anthony

One phrase which kept coming up for me again and again is "now wash your bowl", which I took to mean that as soon as a belief, or concept (like the abovementioned ones), had helped me see through some false belief I had, I would then immediately throw it away, washing the bowl. And watching carefully the play of these beliefs coming up, eating each other, and what remains.

I am interested in descriptions of your path moments. What happened each time? Were they all the same or are there differences?
From your previous post - My SE experience
how did the rest of the paths work out as far as a blip or discontinuity?
Thanks for sharing,
~D

When there is clear insight into the delusion of self and the background observer is seen through, there is vividness, luminosity and clarity of phenomena. The very thing is crystal clear sharpness without the background observer or vantage point - just sound, sweetness, scenery. Seeing/awareness/luminosity is just descriptions of the quality of transient experience, radiance is just the transience, there is no seeing besides the self-luminous seen.

Just randomly found an old post by Daniel.

http://dharmaoverground.org/web/guest/discussion/-/message_boards/message/95028

Aight, I'll jump in.

I do use the word "emptiness" loosely to refer to both Fruition and seeing things as they are, and this probably needs some revision. I fall into the same basic trap as the original dudes did with Nirvana, where they used it both to describe Fruition and to describe Arahatship. It is the same basic categorical ambiguity. The relationship between these is an age-old question, and is basically just one of categorization.

As to seeing "emptiness" in real-time, this is what anagamis do particularly well, especially those who have been them for a while, and what is means is that they can notice that sensations are just where they are, doing just what they do, on their own, not observed, not as object, but simply as manifesting transience. This comes as much from having clearly penetrated and understood the sensations that seemed to make up "subject" as it does about anything to do with "object". However, there are still processes that are somewhat artificially dualistic, distorted, subject-objecty, or however you want to put it.

As to primordial awareness, it actually becomes something of an extraneous concept at the end, as finally there is "in the seeing just the seen, in the hearing just the heard, in the feeling just the felt, etc.", and things being that simple, that direct, that untangled, is what makes the difference, and you can call it what you like.

Fruition is when reality vanishes in very specifically complete way and and then reappears. Primordial awareness is realized when one realizes there is no such thing as primordial awareness that is different from the field of transient manifestation, though there are various aspects of that understanding that can become the focus of attention, which is to say present themselves, and various linguistic ways to talk about this, some of which are clearly more ambiguous than others.

.......

Beware the seduction of the formless realms. They are very enticing. It is not that they do not convey something important, it is not that they don't write something very good and useful on the mind, and it is not that they don't provide some hints about things, but in the end they are conditioned. I actually highly recommend them to anagamis who are working on finishing things up, but not because they contain some truth that more ordinary mind states do not, as in the end, one has to find some aspect of things that is present at all times, in the most ordinary places and objects, something that was always true, something unconditioned, and, as all is transient, it ends up being something that is not bound up in the specific qualities.

The anagami is easily lead astray in various directions. They long for various artificial relationships between the ultimate and relative, with some of these being along the lines of:
-they want emptiness to be some transcendent superspace in which they rest untouched by phenomena
-they want emptiness to be something like the transcendence of the formless realms
-they want emptiness to be the complete disappearance of experience that somehow happens in realtime
-they want emptiness to be like some subtle other dimension that gives them a break from reality
-they want to go into Fruition and never come out
-they want emptiness to be some extra light or radiance or quality that gets added onto phenomena that somehow makes them better or more pleasant

These are all subtle or gross forms of aversion, desire, and ignorance. In the end, this is it, but there is some very real, straightforward, untangling of subject-object at its core that reveals why the dreams that the formless realms create and the paradoxical escape dreams that anagamis can fall into are not a realistic refuge, and also reveals something very simple about why the Buddha talked a lot about suffering.

In the same fashion as above this is Daniel's criteria for 4th path taken from this thread: http://dharmaoverground.org/web/guest/discussion/-/message_boards/message/2759757

Daniel's standards for 4th are high and what you have attained needs to hold up over a period of time before a proper claim can be made.

Daniel Ingram:

Hey Tom thanks for this I hadn't seen it before! That is really helpful and deffo the standard I would like.

UPDATE: So I spent the first 4 days in what seemed like me to be total 100% agencyless no-stick teflon brain mode.

Then last night, I started to slip out, things just seemed a bit more agencied. I found I could 'seem to' control my actions again. At night I woke up rushing with a lot of nervous energy, and had some thoughts which seemed cyclic and seemed to be dragging. It was a pretty heavy cycle of some sort. I had doubts about the attainment state, but there was also a mild understanding of that whatever the content or cycle was, or whatever state one thinks one is, the game has been seen. But nonetheless it was deffo not 4th-path mode.

When I woke up again this morning, I sat just doing some concentration practice and had a little contemplation in the park, and all day including now I am back in agencyless-teflon-mode. Right now my computer has just died, so am using a friend's one while we try and fix mine, in an awful hurry as I have to go to a dance class tonight, and there a lot of stuff going on around us here in the studio. It is a highly annoying and stressful situation, there is a lot of buzzing/tension (annoyance) in my heart area, but there is no resistance at all to the unfolding of events, I am just in agencyless mode, watching/hearing us scream at the computers, and Chris is using a powerdrill 2 metres away, and it's just a jolly show.

But basically it appears I am in and out of teflon mode. But however today I had a contemplation which I think might have locked it in (I am an optimist / cocky ), it was about not clinging to teflon-"mode" /4th path - there is no such thing as teflon mode or path as a fixed state, it is simply a total lack of resistance to each moment of experience, in each moment, aka what it means to drop desire totally, moment by moment. Sounds twee and obvious but something clicked / sync'd up.

But anyway so obviously I am NOT THERE YET (but I am sure I am close, given that I am oscillating in and out) and I will see what happens in the next couple of weeks/months. Also obviously the subtler things which Daniel talks about, again, I guess I won't know yet.

So just to apologise for shouting BINGO a bit early! Thanks for everyone's help though and I don't feel embarrassed or bad about this all - on the contrary I am so glad to be able to have experienced people share and guide me through this! It's amazing that this place exists where people can tall openly like this. Better I think than hanging out alone with my experience for a month (or years) wondering what's going on. I don't have anyone experienced to talk stuff like this over with here. (btw is anyone in LONDON / BRISTOL / SW UK out there?).

thanks all, Anthony

Spiritual bypassing is more when someone has mix of some realization, and craving / attachment related to spiritual realization. That creates a sort of psychological shield against difficult mental formations eg. in the form of delusions of grandeur.

This is why I say don't take the enlightenment stuff too seriously.

But it is pretty normal I think to fall into that sort of trap, and it shouldn't take away from your genuine progress. Usually such delusions will naturally unravel given curiosity and honesty.

Regardless I think it is brave that you are claiming attainment publicly, and for me it is always inspiring to see other people getting it done.

Whether your experience matches up with MCTB 4th path is not the most important point. How it impacts your experience of life and that of other sentient beings (incl. your friends, family, etc.) is more important.


Also I had a journal here on DhO where I kept track of the stuff. I had a lot of genuine insight and realization during that period, but looking back I wrote quite a bit of nonsense as well.

Are you saying your awakening experience matches Daniel's criteria quoted above? Meaning, no sense of agency whatsoever, and it never arising under any circumstances?

I'm not sure how Daniel differentiate between insight and experience... I don't remember anyone saying a sense of self never arising after MCTB 4th path, despite insights on selflessness.


http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/sn/sn22/sn22.089x.wlsh.html

So, do you still have a "scent"?

The rest of the paragraph should be included for context:



Daniel states in the quote from my above post that affect still arises even in centerlessness/agencylessness. Affect is an 'I am' conceit regardless of whether considered "this I am" or "this I am not." This is my opinion and there are likely dharma teachers who would try to disagree. The difference here is that the ordering for Kenneth's criteria is different than Daniel's criteria. Daniel puts the "crushing blow to agency" before the elimination of affect/feelings.


Note that Kenneth Folk (who has less technically rigorous standards for 4th path as far as agencylessness/centerlessness goes) states for stage 5 and 6 of his 7/8/9? stages: Stage 5 "At this stage, the practitioner is identified with emotional feelings rather than a conceptual self. So he or she will resist and argue with more advanced practitioners about what comes next..."

"Stage 6: Emotional transformation. Marked attenuation of feelings. (See Damasio’s Looking for Spinoza for the distinction between emotions and feelings. Feelings are the subjective component of emotions. Emotions can and do carry on without the corresponding feelings, as emotions and feelings happen in different parts of the brain.) Practitioner may still display full range of emotions as observed by others while reporting only contentment, well-being, acceptance, etc. This new emotional stability sets the stage for..."

Stage 8: A deepening of the insights from stages 6 and 7, plus a crushing blow to the ownership and agency aspects of selfing.


See http://jaytek.net/KFD/KFDForum/page/A%2B9%2BStage%2BMap%2Bof%2BDevelopmental%2BEnlightenmenthtml.html

Hi Sadalsuud...

I liked your comment "now wash your bowl", and the rest of your explanation, "One phrase which kept coming up for me again and again is "now wash your bowl", which I took to mean that as soon as a belief, or concept (like the abovementioned ones), had helped me see through some false belief I had, I would then immediately throw it away, washing the bowl. And watching carefully the play of these beliefs coming up, eating each other, and what remains."

I withdrew my initial appreciative note on your expression here before you "came down" from the four days; I withdrew it because I actually read your subject header-- and you use a model that I do not. I use the fetter model and could personally associate what you wrote with sotapanna. I don't know much about the MCTB model.

Best wishes with your goals (and this is why I wanted to repost a comment, mainly: I like and related to how you expressed the result of that temporary shift as I excerpted here above in italics. Basically, in my words, becoming trainable; becoming basic; becoming capable; becoming at ease with this simple work/simple re-application of a simple process again and again; the first step towards cumulative skill, aka: wisdom, then maybe someday something like being in spontaneous skill, like any master craftsperson after so many hours of repeated, good training. And I also just wanted to re-post again in support of you seeing an end to that state and reporting it as accurately as you can at the moment..

Also, I appreciate that "AEN" is reiterating the point about "I AM" in several threads.

By the way other than the agencyless, is there direct insight and experience of crystal clarity as the manifold? When seeing scenery, there's just the crystal clarity that is just the scenery experienced intimately - or better yet, gaplessly (literally no vantage point, observer, gap, distance, etc) - in intense, direct, immediate clarity and everything is clarity and aliveness.

Thusness wrote years ago, "Here the highlight must not only be the empty nature of ‘sound’ alone, that luminosity as ‘sound’ must similarly be emphasized. When we stripped-off the symbolic representation of ‘bird’, ‘chirping’, ‘outside’, ‘eyes-organ’, ‘ears-organs’, ‘sensate reality’ and merely experience in bare, this is the meditative state of intuitively knowing that quality of being luminous in oneness. Oneness as there is nothing to divide when devoid of these symbolic layering. The depth of the crystal clarity of that pure experience – ‘chirping’ is not what language can convey. The point here is not to bring about a scientific study on the topic of qualia but to have a direct feel of the full absorption in the delight of that clear-luminosity of ‘sound’. It is the ‘depth and degree’ of absorptive-clarity yet non-staying that is most important; not the symbolic understanding of meanings."

I wrote to someone before, "continue practicing the intensity of luminosity... When looking at
tennis ball just sense the tennis ball fully.... Without thinking of a
source, background, observer, self. Just the tennis ball as a luminous
light. When breathing... Just the breathe... When seeing scenery, just
sights, shapes and colours - intensely luminous and vivid without an agent
or observer. When hearing music... Sound of bird chirping, the crickets...
Just that - chirp chirp. A zen master noted upon his awakening... When I am
hearing the bell ringing, there is no I and no bell... Just the ringing. The
direct experiencing of no-mind and intensity of luminosity"

It is advisable to clearly discern the two stanzas, the differences, and complement them in direct experience and insight: http://awakeningtoreality.blogspot.com.au/2009/03/on-anatta-emptiness-and-spontaneous.html

Hey guys. I am relaxing a little into a nice attitude of chilledness about what the state I am currently in is. Still experiencing it with no agency/no watcher which seems nice. Some observations. Take these more as an investigation, my open process, journal, hope it's interesting.

I am using Daniel's description of 4th path simply because it seems like a good accurate marker of something for now.

It's strange, doubting you have got 4th after having seen it thoroughly is like doubting that you are reality. If you doubt you have 4th, you're basically saying "I don't think I'm reality, I think I'm something else". A thought which arose:

It doesn't matter what you think, or what you believe. YOU are Reality, Reality IS LIKE THIS, and REALITY ALWAYS WINS.

=====Thoughts and 'affect', cyclic thoughts can still occur! aka my misconceptions=====

* One thing that surprised me and caused doubting thoughts about mctb 4th path, is that thoughts which arose in my experience could still cause emotional (body sensation) response. This is greatly attenuated, but still deffo possible.
* There is still "affect". For example a guy who is meant to buying something off me cancelled for the 2nd time in a row after I had stayed in to meet him. There was a body sensation of annoyance/anger when I read his message.
* And also, emotional states (e.g. body sensations of say annoyance or anger) can still cause annoyed thoughts to appear e.g. "the mental image/voice idea of texting him back with an annoyed message".

* So it is actually still possible to have cyclic negative thoughts. It is also still possible to have thoughts of a judging nature towards oneself, e.g. noting an angry thought, then a thought arise "oh this must mean I haven't really achieved xyz state" which can cause a body sensation of 'nervousness'.

The massive difference though is that as none of the inner thought voices are given "me-status" (whether or not the thinking mind realises/notices this or not). So what the mind can no longer do is give some of the thoughts "me-status" and thus create a situation where it splits off a part of itself to fight the other part of itself. Basically there's no longer a mechanism which protects or prioritises one stream of thoughts, and it's this process which before made say, indecision, very ADDITIONALLY jarring.

So, say you're having indecision, or thoughts which refer to the self negatively, "shall I do this? no, I should do that. oh why can't I decide? I'm obviously not enlightened!", it is still 'unpleasant' but only unpleasant in the way that, listening to a couple argue next to you in a cafe is. It doesn't have the oddly jarring quality like YOU debating with a SOMEONE.


In way, I guess thoughts are basically given no more reality or sway than other sense-inputs.

This is my current understanding of the Teflon-mind. Basically all my doubting thoughts come from that I guess my expectation of the state was different to how it actually is. It is awesome though. I probably haven't sold it well here, but it is as we say here, WELL GOOD.

=========Agencylessness==========

This for me was the most stunning part of it. All my life I have chased 'flow', 'being in the zone' through sports like surfing or
creative process like improvising dance. And yes, there is no agency sense. In this way it's exactly like being in the zone. If you are improvising some dance, and someone asks you, which moves are you "improvising or spontaneous" and which ones are you "intending", the question just doesn't make sense. So this lovely state of flow applies, only now it applies to all thoughts as well. So to say - which thoughts are "you" or "intended" VS which ones arise spontaneously, just doesn't make sense. It's weird and a lot of fun.

Sometimes it seems like there is agency. So for example I have the thought "OK, I'm gonna get up and make scrambled eggs now", and the body moves, then another thought arises a second later "oh wait that seemed like agency", but it's not really. Basically because the thought was formed in the sense "I'm gonna", which in the old pattern would have been given "me-status", it sounded like an old intent-action pattern. But it was just another non-special thought, which arose due to past conditions, and caused more stuff.

It doesn't matter what YOU think, or YOU believe. Reality IS LIKE THIS, and REALITY ALWAYS WINS

===========Centrelessness===========

Initially I wasn't sure what this meant, as it was so obvious. Stuff is observed where it is, and it seems pristine and lush.
I think this is because say when you try look at something, stare at it, e.g. a pen, after a couple of seconds you become aware that the attention pattern has done its watcher thing. e.g. flicked from the pen, to sensations on the front of your face and back to the pen. Before this might be interpreted as me watching a pen, or some sense of something else there as well as the pen. But now it's just pen, + maybe facebuzz. This is what I think people can refer to poetically as perceiving emptiness all the time. Experience, now being empty of a watching agenda which adds desire to every moment, seems brighter and nicer. @AEN - very very beautiful words - thank you!

===========end of seeking?===========
That day I felt like the big fire had been put out, the end of seeking, the end of the existential drive. Then I found myself 3 days later, having negative thoughts and wanting to do get more insight, do practice, as I thought "it's obviously not done yet". So I was confused by this. But then I just realised that I was just trying to practice to feel better, take away pain, distract, like eating chocolate. It didn't seem related to the same drive for "TRUTH" as practice previously. It will be interesting to see how this one pans out. It is early days.

congratulations if you made it this far! I really enjoyed putting these words down, feels good to have them out of my mind. thanks to everyone, feeling a lot of gratitude right now.

I have been turning a lot of thoughts back to life - autumn is here in England, the temperature has dropped and the wind has picked up, stirring! My main ambition now is to get the biggest, most colourful kite that I can lay my hands on, fly it high in the blue autumn sky over hampstead heath, (which has an amazing panoramic view over London) and then find a girl with a dufflecoat, a musical giggle and beautiful long brown hair, and jump into a giant pile of red and gold leaves with her.

anthony

As to synesthesia, it is a good point, and that quote is sort of hitting at things from a different framework.

I actually have some mild synesthesia, particularly for sounds. I was a sound-man for 6 years as my living and would actually mix the sound to look right, as I could in some strange way see all of the sounds, where they were, what colors they were, what shapes they were, what textures they had, how they fit into the space visually, etc., and I would adjust the board to make all of the visuals correct, so I get that point. More generally, meditation often reveals that most people have lots of very subtle synesthesias that help them process reality by drawing on the competencies of one sense door to help them process another.

Basically, you can strip it down to one sense door or a few synesthetic sense doors or whatever, but the basic point, "in this sensation, just this sensation" remains.

Hi,

To me, this is could be a sotapanna understanding, the breakup of actual identity view. Again, such a shift too would need a year, too to even know for oneself.

The only reason why I'm sharing my opinion of your experience here is that the fetter model may offer some useful direction in the months to come, as your life continues. In the fetter model one is directed clearly then to study the two fetters that effect the next two "stages" of learning: gross and subtle craving/gratification and ill-will/aversion. For me, I happened to meet with Ven. Analayo not long after the first "path" mental shift arising from meditation and though we didn't discuss my study, he looked at a small group of us waiting to sit with him after a class and he clearly, briefly advised, "[Metta is the practice for the middle two paths. It addresses both of those fetters.]" (paraphrased) For about five months I couldn't understand the practice, but I didn't forget his point, because he was very direct. Then in the middle of the night in the heart of a problem five months later (about seven months after sotapanna experience), it occurred to me what is intended there, with metta. (MCTB was useful to me and I even went online for a passage last year; my talk of the fetter model is not a comparison between it and MCTB. Just something different.)

So while you know better than I the state of your mind/study and the model you like best and if you are satisfied/still capable of self-induced stress, that model is just something for your consideration as your study continues. That model makes me alert to seeing how those two broad classes of affect arise in my own mind.

Best wishes.

Hi Katy. Thanks for this. I agree that the fetter model is a useful one and my attention now is turning towards integrating insight to the body and emotional centre, ie causing the reduction of ill will and crass sensual desire.... a seemingly long journey... but who knows!

Hey Daniel,
just wondering - in your description of what 4th path is for you, I was just wondering what sort of things these subtle things were?



It would good to have some things that I could be looking out for to see the limits of my current insight, whatever that is. Very deep thanks, Anthony

hey

1st path - as in the account you read. no noticable discontinuity

2nd path a couple of weeks later - at the time, I thought this was a review fruition, but my perception changed very drastically after that, with sudden oncoming of effects like very brief temporary states of agencylessness. Centrelessness started to phase in here, about 20-40% of the time.


3rd path - there are a few contenders for this. because my experience was deepening and changing day by day, it is really hard to tell. there were some fruition moments like the one described above that had big bliss wave impacts, and some which had smaller ones. My top contender is when I was at a Zen monastery for a long weekend, I had just experienced the 6th formless jhana in a big (for me) way, and then I went and sat outside in the very beautiful garden, and was contemplating hard. I had a realisation that I had no way of knowing if I was sat in the garden today or yesterday (as the vista was the same image I had seen yesterday), aside from my thoughts about time. Sounds stupid I know. A definite blink out and laughter, bliss wave for half a day, and immediately after that I experienced odd perception effects, like being too confused to eat food on my fork, as I thought the food was me, and in the few days after that and ongoing, centrelessness predominated my experience - about 70% of the time (but not agencylessness). Also, a lot of weird experiences in daily life, massive senses of deja vu or confusion about time, lots of flashbacks to drug experiences, lots of dreams about being stuck in fractal places.

4th path - I had been doing walking 'meditation' all morning and came to a large shopping centre. The night before I had read a blog of an ex-DhO guy who had used a lot of magick and basically had created a belief story structure for himself that meant he believed he would get enlightened when he went somewhere in India, and lo and behold, he just did. I had been thinking hard about belief structures at this point, as accounts I had read here of the anagami state (from Daniel) led me to think that the step to 4th is nothing to do with meditation, only grace, faith and desperation, to get a flip to occur. (Actually I had been practicing believing this since 2nd path, as I was trying hard to not believe in the path system as it seemed like it might slow me down...). Anyway I have a thing about shopping centres and consumer culture, it is deeply ingrained into the hero's-journey-type-story I had created for myself about enlightenment, and so I was like, "let's decide to do it here, how fitting, how amazing and funny". I sat on a deckchair outside the shopping centre and went into low level jhana and quickly vowed to get it done, here, in the Stratford Westfield shopping centre, in a fake piazza opposite the Hugo Boss store. I can't emphasise enough how important to my lifestory and how prophecy-like the shopping centre thing is for me.

Then sat contemplating the bahiya sutta for about 20 mins. "In the seen, only the seen...". Earlier that day I had also read somewhere someone writing "in the seen ALWAYS only the seen". I was contemplating the difference then between the enlightened state and non-enlightened state. How can you "train yourself so that in the seen is only the seen"? surely "in the seen, only the seen" is a fact, training or not, enlightened or not. How could it be otherwise? and with this, something flipped. It was similar to my other path moments, the weird "direct seeing" feeling that I associate with conformity. no noticable fruition. Giant giant bliss wave, sense of landing home, instant teflon-ification of mind, thoughts streaming through, but with no grip at all. Sat laughing, crying, laughing, crying for 20 minutes. I understood then exactly why they say everyone is enlightened, whether they realise it or not. I had thought there would be some perceptual difference between the enlightened state and not, but there isn't (but there is, a massive one). Got up and was totally agencyless, with teflon mind. Then my mind-body walked of it's own accord into the shopping centre, to McDs (this is another central part of my hero's journey myth) and got fries and an icecream Apart from one evening when I seemingly came out of this state 4 days later, I have since been locked into it, 100% agencylessness, 100% teflon-mind, and 100% centrelessness.

hope that helps, I enjoyed writing it.

(I enjoyed reading it, particularly deckchair mall-path, confusion about food on fork... meditation is a fun(ny) hobby)

hi sadalsuud, great insights. thusness read and commented today and you might want to look into the following:

"for anatta to mature...one must penetrate and integrate the view of DO and Emptiness. The description is more on no-doership than intensity of luminosity imo. He must go through 2 fold emptying ... See through essencelessness in both self/Self and phenomenon. Imp not to neglect view and skew towards direct experience in an early phase and over emphasize on non-conceptuality of direct experience. Continue to contemplate the relationships between 5 aggregates and 18 dhatus. DO and emptiness...before one turns into non-conceptuality and spontaneous liberation."

hey

1. This is magic! I love the way that I have no idea who Thusness is, (but I have read some Thusness stuff on your blog and I know that whatever Thusness is, it has level of realization far beyond my own). I love this about the internet sangha. Somewhere on the other side of the world, within hours of writing, the highly advanced Thusness3000 Reality Integration Engine has analysed my writing and pointed out with what seems like great accuracy (to me) where realisation needs improving. My comment is flippant but my sentiment is genuine: awe that the world is like this now, and gratitude to both of you. Please do not send me any information about the nature of Thusness, I wish to continue to invent various ideas of it in my head.

Notes in Dharma: "Dear Mum, today an unknown entity told me I must go through 2 fold emptying. Don't know what it means but felt very pleased."

2. So anyway on the below. yes I am deffo resonating with what he is saying. I tried reading some stuff about n-fold emptiness and I have to say I can't quite get what it's talking about yet. So I guess my realisation on that front is not mature but also I just don't get the words/language it's written in. I really want to understand more but over the past few weeks just at Thusness somewhat psychically points out, I have dropped thinking about view like a stone, and I have been just cold chillin' in direct experience or fantasizing about unicorn bodhisattvas. Have you penetrated 2-fold emptiness? I will marshall some thoughts together and write to you for explanation.
cheers, anthony

I've written a short description about Thusness in my e-book. As for emptiness: I've had insights pertaining to emptiness but far from full actualization (e.g. Buddha, etc).

I've nothing to add at this moment to the existing thread on emptiness: http://dharmaoverground.org/web/guest/discussion/-/message_boards/message/4179363