Forum: Dharma Overground Discussion Forum

Having passed through dark night dukkhaville over the past month or so, I now consider myself to be at the reobservation stage. Recently, however I have been experiencing meditation sits with a lot of equanimity. In these sits, I am starting to see the ¨blinking¨ that Daniel talks about in his book, I think.... There will be just observation of the sensations and then BLINK and there is the feeling of I, me mine, then back to just sensations then BLINK and so on and so on. Is this normal? Also in this state the images of what I think are ´me´become clearer. What is suprising is that these images sometimes don´t even take on my actual face nor body or even my own voice, becuase these images seem alive. They sometimes seem like people I know or know of or faces I don´t really know. Sorry if i am being vague, I am not quite as intellectual as the majority of people here and find it hard to putinto words. My question is are what is being observed, are these ¨formations¨.? Whata re yor experience of formations exactly? I am a little confused on what exaclty is a formation.



I am pretty simple

usually formations dont start showing up til equanimity stage, which is where dan ingram starts talking about them in MCTB. however, there's a bit in the visuddhimagga about how desire for deliverance/re-observation/equanimity are part of the same triad, and mahasi says something to support that in 'practical insight meditation', about how (i paraphrase) by the time one is in re-observation, one is experiencing formations. practically speaking, however, i found this much clearer in hindsight, and a hundred times over hindsight as well. it was only after going up into eq and falling back, over and over and over again, that i started to see why buddhaghosa and mahasi point to formations as being the mode of experience in late dark night territory as well. i want to bring this up just to point to a way to bridge what seems to be a big gap or divide between re-obs and eq, when it doesnt have to be one. one way to see this is to see that there's a certain completeness, and inclusiveness, that is already presenting in late dark night, but is just often missed because the meditator is too busy obsessing about something or another or fighting with himself to look. so next time you find yourself in that territory, take a break from the struggle and have a look around. what is your experiential landscape like? and what are you so busy looking for? then, seeing this, does the effort kind of fade? and how, now, is your attention itself moving? does it have a clip rate? are things sort of swelling into existence.. and then what? and whats this curious blink-out thing the mind does anyway?

if you're getting this close that you're starting to see how your 'self-image' isnt dependent on your everyday concepts of who or what you are, then you've got some interesting investigating right in front of you! never mind what a formation is exactly.. its just the way things are experienced when your mind's not blinking as much.

From my limited experience, I would say that your blinking is different from formations. Blinking (or flickering as I call it) probably means your attention has increased and you are noticing imperminance much better. Formations appear when you can keep this attention and relax into them. Then you might catch glimpses of "a moment in time". It's sort of like normal everyday perception (you and your perception and the time feel of a moment) but it shows up in a bundle, all at once, and as fast as thought. It freaked me out the first time it happened.

Hope that helps -- and I hope that's correct! I am pretty sure that good advice would be: keep watching the blinking!

Thanks guys,


So formations are what occur when there is less blinking. Awesome. That helps heaps. I thought what I was seeing when I/me/mine blinked (and sometimes with a different face) was a formation. So I will continue to observe this blinking. When it was first witnessed, it felt like a very important insight. Now I can't stop noticing the blinking. When I shut my eyes and observe the flow of vibrations throughout the body, the blinking in and out gets very obvious. Weird but cool! What else should I be looking ut for? I guess I am on the right track.

Bless this site!!!!!!!!!!

You write that you can notice the blinking, then notice the sensations that seem to be you, then notice the blinking, then notice the you sensations. Increase awareness of the transition or motion of attention that includes both of them, notice how they are part of the same moving, transient open field of attention, look at how attention or space or manifestation moves around, and begin to notice that they are all part of the same thing, attention/space/manifestation moving, blinking, attending, doing its thing, and stay with it, even if it gets creepy and particularly if it begins to hit close to home or shake the sense of a center point or begins to feel like things are synching up.

Thanks for the great advice, Daniel. This also has helped me relax into this experience.

i had a very weird experience at my last retreat: i was sitting outside,watching the branches shade of the tree ,mooving with a wind on the ground and suddenly i saw a momentary stop like if somebody made a picture of the branches shade and by the moment i realized what it was i saw again branche's shade mooving with a wind.was it real experience or some illusory thing?the moment i perseived it i felt scared like if i become insane .sorry if this commentary is stupid.my feeling was that of really freaking out but since then i never happened again no on the cushion and not in daily life