Nope,
Like I said above, I have had a preview of some stuff and modified some categories and talked to those who have done more.
The reason I wanted to put this out there though its not done yet, is that I am having health problems and going to get my heart stented soon.
So just in case, I wanted to pass on my ramblings so hopefully someone can build on them.
Wish me luck,
~D

much luck and success!  get well in advance!
much metta

Wow, okay, then best of luck with that! Stay alive and healthy!  (I have no idea what stenting a heart means, but it doesn't sound pleasant)

Dream Walker.............Mate ive had the medics swarming all over, inside 'n outside my old ticker and stenting is a well oiled, simple proceedure.  They are pros, they'll take great care of you and return you to us, once more full and complete.  I am all to familiar with the worry and apprehension that occures prior to heart proceedures, and whilst i can't help in person, Please know that i will be with you in the Fellowship of the Spirit.

Love ya man ...............get your ass back here ASAP..............there's a job to be done.

P.s.  Let us know what time the proceedure is to occur and your time zone and i'll work out when to be sitting in meditative absorption, in your support.

Cheers Mate,  Stuie

Dec 16th, 9am west coast time USA. Thats the scheduled time to start the proceedure.
Thanks all, it should be pretty straight forward but any well wishes are appreciated
~D

Update: time change to 9am

Thanks for sharing the framework. it is an intriguing way of looking at this



I'll definitely be sending well wishes your way.

Hi DW,

Good luck with your procedure, I hope all goes well.

bumping this as a reminder - note the time change

D W..................Where fore art thou?

Oh hey, I'm in Hawaii chilling out on the beach for the holidays.
The Doc got pics of my heart and it was such a mess he did not stent it. It neeeds around 15 stents or surgery, so I have a sugical consult after the new year to see what kinda open heart bypass they are thinking. In the mean time I'm supposed to take it easy so I dont POP. But until the pictures, I had been working out every day at the gym and lost weight and look better than ever. I have been working on reversing the heart disease but it is proving to be harder than reversing diabetes, which is now reversed to the pre diabetic stage with diet supplements exersize and wishful thinking.  Its totally frustrating trying to figure out heart disease, the standard model of cholesterol seems like utter horse crap...I'm leaning towards the infection model, as genetic tests are finding 50 some bacterias and 30 funguses in the plaque. So I am taking a ton of different suplements and anything that has little to no downside and kitchen sinking it. Lots of alternative protocols out there and I am doing all I can find. It is really difficult to sift thru all the crap and disinformation but I am following my intuition which has lead me to several interesting things.
So wish me luck....
May all beings be happy, May all beings be healthy, May all beings be healed, May all beings love themselves with great kindness just as they are now, May all beings be free from suffereing, May all beings be at peace.
~D

Good luck!  I took cholesterol lowering medicine for almost 10 years, I stopped for some of the reasons you point out.

Yup but the standard model sells a LOT of drugs and if big pharma picks their study participants carefully and ends any research that is going the wrong way early, they can show a tiny benefit to taking them.  I think I just read something about 'preventative' statin use now being authorized. However, since my brain and cell membranes require cholesterol to function, I think I'll pass on trying to block its production if possible.  ;-P  Also consider that cholesterol lowering drugs increase the chance of cancer (which is believed to occur due to defects in immune system response). 

Personally I try to eat mostly paleo style.  (minus some of the extreme stuff some of the diehards go to).  That means I eat natural saturated fats like lard and coconut oil and try to avoid the veggie oils which go rancid and develop transfats easily.  Natural fats taste better too, conveniently but for those too nervous of the science to try, real olive oil would be a middle road. Ironically, most studies that show the dangers of a 'high fat western diet' deal a lot with hydrogenated vegetable oils.  Whereas studies using coconut for their 'high fat diet' found protective effects.  Some very powerful protection against liver damage was found when rats were fed coconut oil with their alcohol to the point of almost complete prevention of liver damage.  Interesting considering that rats generally do not do well on high fat, their natural diet is not super similar to humans.  Rats fed crisco like diets, which is usually the diet used for them to prove the dangers of a high fat diet, do really poorly.  I would suggest the same is probalby true of humans, hydrogenated veggie oils are not natural for any creature.  However some feel (and there is good evidence for) the danger is polunsaturated fatty acids do not mix well with high sugar diets, so the 2 togother are like a perfect storm. The various fats really need to be looked at on a case by case basis and should not be lumped together.  Interestingly, saturated fat and cholesterol have been linked with improved immune response as well. Anyway, there is much still to learn..

• Researchers induced liver disease by feeding mice a combination of
  alcohol and omega-3-rich fish oil.  They then stopped the alcohol and
  split the mice into two groups, one fed fish oil plus glucose, the other
  palm oil plus glucose. (Palm oil consists predominantly of saturated
  fat, and is less than 10% polyunsaturated.) Livers of the fish oil group
  failed to recover, but the palm oil group “showed near normalization.”
  The researchers hailed saturated fat as “a novel treatment for liver disease.” [2]
• Mice fed 27.5% of calories as alcohol developed severe liver disease
  and metabolic syndrome when given a corn oil diet, but no disease at
  all when given a cocoa butter diet. (Corn oil is 55% polyunsaturated,
  cocoa butter is predominantly saturated fat and is less than 3%
  polyunsaturated.) The first line of this paper begins, “The protective effect of dietary saturated fatty acids against the development of alcoholic liver disease has long been known.” [3]
• Scientists induced liver disease in mice by feeding alcohol plus
  corn oil.  They then substituted a saturated-fat rich mix based on beef
  tallow and coconut oil for 20%, 45%, and 67% of the corn oil. The more
  saturated fat, the healthier the liver. [4]

   [1] Holahan CJ et al. Late-Life Alcohol Consumption and 20-Year Mortality. Alcohol Clin Exp Res. 2010 Aug 24. [Epub ahead of print] http://pmid.us/20735372. Full text: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1530-0277.2010.01286.x/pdf. (Hat tip:  Robin Hanson, http://www.overcomingbias.com/2010/09/alcohol-is-healthy.html)[2] Nanji AA et al. Dietary saturated fatty acids: a novel treatment for alcoholic liver disease. Gastroenterology. 1995 Aug;109(2):547-54. http://pmid.us/7615205.[3] You M et al. Role of adiponectin in the protective action of dietary saturated fat against alcoholic fatty liver in mice. Hepatology. 2005 Sep;42(3):568-77. http://pmid.us/16108051.[4] Ronis MJ et al. Dietary saturated fat reduces alcoholic
hepatotoxicity in rats by altering fatty acid metabolism and membrane
composition. J Nutr. 2004 Apr;134(4):904-12. http://pmid.us/15051845.

-Eva

Saw this fly by on ScienceDaily the other day:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/12/151217130454.htm

Turns out that gut microbes are responsible for metabolising animal fats into a chemical that contributes to atherosclerosis (in mice anyway). An inhibitor found in cold pressed olive oil and grapeseed oil supresses the production of the offending chemical.

                

Hey Dreamwalker, I'm sorry to hear you're having health issues. I think what you're doing by looking for alternative measures is very wise. Conventional medicine is great for dealing with acute issues like bullet wounds, and car accidents, but they're really unreliable for curing chronic diseases like heart disease and diabetes. The way that they push expensive medicine and surgery on people is terrible, imo. Instead of curing the disease, many doctors just give out drugs to suppress symptoms. Problem is that it's not helping the issue, and may make things worse in the long run with side effects.

I agree with Eva's recommendations. I think everyone should avoid fried foods if they want to be as healthy as they can. This is due to the vegetable oil, which is high in Polyunsaturated fats, oxidizing at high temperatures (fryring) and creating big time inflammation in the body when consumed. I'd avoid any food high in polyunsaturated fats with the exception of fish, on occasion (although fish also seems to give me a strange reaction if I eat too much of it). Saturated fats, afaik, are not oxidized at high temperatures, and if they are they oxidize at ridiculously high temperatures. Saturated Fats are also really good for hormone health. Monounsaturated fats are also good fats for the body. I'd also avoid grains (wheat, barley, rye and oats) if I could. Some people can handle them, but to many, they cause inflammation in the gut which can cause overall body inflammation to go up. They also can damage intestines which can affect how well you absorb nutrients in food as well as can cause leaky gut if intestine damage is high. For the most part, Paleo is a good base philosophy, imo, for living a healthy life. This a long with common sense, noticing what foods agree or don't agree with your body.

A lot of this information I learned in the past few months was from this guy Dr. Joel Wallach. I found him on YouTube and he has some really interesting videos. He's a really smart guy who was nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize in medicine for preventing and even reversing serious diseases in animals with nutrients. He used those same philosophies and began treating people for diseases and he's been pretty successful. He has a supplement company which sells vitamins, minerals and other nutrients in packages for whatever disease you're treating. I haven't tried his stuff because they're a bit expensive for me at the moment, but the ingredients look really solid. I'd look into some of his videos at least on heart disease. He has a movie called Dead Doctor's Don't Lie that I haven't seen it but I've heard good things about it.

I hope you get well soon tho Dreamwalker, you're a great part of this community. For now, enjoy the Hawaiian paradise.

As far as I can tell Carnatine, phosphatidylcholine, choline, vit E as well as many other items have been targeted as "bad" for you while others claim these actually are curitive of heart disease. Very difficult to figure out who is motivated to say what. What to believe....

http://perfecthealthdiet.com/2013/04/lessons-from-the-latest-red-meat-scare/

Resistant starches and fiber is one of the main intuitive things I have researched to change my gut bacteria....super simple to do and potato starch is cheap.

Edit: thanks everyone for your well wishes....and if you like paleo check out the perfect health diet....it's claimed to be paleo perfected....I really enjoyed the book as it actually makes a lot of sense.

Yeah, perfect health diet is pretty good too.  I think theh paleo eaters tend to get a bit extreme, perfect health diet is a more balanced approach but we all still have a lot to learn. 

As for the carnitine and choline scare, the danger of TMAO in humans is very debatable.  Remember that rats are omnivores like us but they do not eat nearly as much meat as us and are not designed for it.  They eat a lot more seeds and the like in nature (something we are not well designed for I might add).  So complex digestive pathways do not always match in them and us.  In fact, studies feeding these 'offending' foods like liver to humans found no increase in TMAO levels and previous studies of the chemistry pathways in humans did not find the same chemical chain in humans as was found in the mice.  Here's a rather thorough debunking: http://www.westonaprice.org/uncategorized/does-dietary-choline-contribute-to-heart-disease/

1. Great work, very useful.

2. When I got SE, one of the changes in perception was that I could move from one thing that I was looking to another faster, there was less "holding".
When I got 2nd, I found that when I focused on something, I couldn't focus on it alone, without watching the surroundings. In fact, I thought that I had a problem with the focus of my vision. What you describe as 3rd path ("Panoramic visual field that holds the focal point") seems very similar to what I got at 2nd (and in fact you describe it better ). Maybe I got 3rd???

3. I follow a strict low fat vegan diet (Esselstyn, McDougall, Greger) etc. While on it my total cholesterol dropped from 180 to 90 and my LDL from 120 to 40.
Everyone is different, but what you eat can affect arterial health a lot (if you are serious about it).

Thanks, its coming along but needs a bunch more work and is kinda limited to my understanding and viewpoint on things. Going to try to start integrating some of Daniels stuff into the model.

Each time a "selfing process" gets shut down, there seems to be additional available resources no longer being taken up.
There is some variance to how things unfold, Some people seem to get first and second at the same time though it is very vary rare and they may have just been born with 1st, or got it without knowing it. <----take with a grain of salt as I dont have enough data points to make a solid guess but that rarely stops me from speculating off of to little data.

If you mess with your vision enough apparently you can open it up to panoramic view. I first noticed it during first path honeymoon period. I have read of people who got this attainment by itself from doing eye exercises to improve vision, there is a local guy who teaches these exercises and I have tried to stop in and chat with him several times to get details.
So aparently you can start 3rd path work with no other attainments possibly though i suspect its a bit harder to do this way.... This is where maps fail to predict outliers or all possible real life scenarios.

I really dislike the cholesterol hypothesis. It is old and flawed from the beginning but sells statins. I tend to think cholesterol is an innocent bystander and plays an intergral role in trying to fix the problem but gets hyjacked.. My most recent thoughts on it is that cholesterol is a food for a fungal infection that then the macrophages can not digest, it then gets oxydized and the foam cells develop. I am reading about the nano bacteria link currently so I may change to that theory or combine them.
I have read that long term low cholesterol is bad also.
~D

A good and reliable sourch of research is the Cochrane Library.
The link is http://www.cochranelibrary.com/. Here you can find a lot of scientific articles about a lot of diseases. I hope it can help you differentiate between what is most likely true and what is false. What is evidents based and what is just speculation. I wish you all the best. BTW, take a look at fasting and the Wim Hof Method, might be helpful.

1. Good idea trying to integrate Daniel's stuff.

2. I still consider myself as 2nd path. There is a very small chance that I got first path some years before I started formal meditation, but it's very unlikely.
What happens to vision is very interesting. However, I never tried to open it (at least not consciously). I usually notice sensations, 3Cs, etc.
The fact that it suddenly changed after 2nd path was really unexpected.

3. I agree about statins (they are not good).

Kinda got off topic....oh well
I'm still alive, and speculating
Good luck all,
~D

I just updated the framework with the flowchart/diagram to document the all of the shifts from A&P to 4th path.

I'm not quite happy with it so far but it seems to be at a point that it may be useful so some. I've been focusing on third path and researching bunches over time to figure out this stuff as well as trying to attain it all myself.
Anyway, lots of work left to do,
~D

statins:
we need cholesterol.
the basis for the idea that high cholesterol is the cause of clogged arteries is patently wrong.

while statins do reduce the cholesterol saturation they do nothing for the underlying causes of arterial clogging, like table salt scarring.

we NEED cholesterol for every cell in our body.  we NEED fats and oils but there are huge differences between oils.  the transfat poisons and lots of hydrogenated oils are horrible but uptake of coconut, olive, fish, chia, sesame, pumpkin seed, argon, leinöl (sorry the english word escapes me at the moment)

statins make you impotent.

Excellent stuff, thank you for sharing! The distinction between 3rd path being awareness pervading the sense doors and 4th being awareness pervading between the sense doors is really compelling and makes a lot of sense. This model confirms my suspicions I'm somewhere in the long, subtle 3rd path slog. The sense doors are "transparent" in isolation, but complex cross-sensory events (like somatic pain from loud noises, or visual distortions from head pain) can still cause contracted clinging and the attendant suffering.

I hope your heart is doing well. Thank you for continuing to share your work.

I'm somewhere in this territory as well and find myself regularly revisiting this thread for inspiration and new places to look for distortion and fabrication.

It's the all day, every day part that's certainly still needs work.

Thank you for sharing and wishing you a full recovery!

I'm curious what 2.5 Path is supposed to be? You don't talk about it at all outside of one graphic and I've never heard any other reference to a shift between 2nd Path and the beginning of the 3rd Path shifts. How does it function? Is it like 1st and 2nd where it comes with the next cycle, or is it like 3rd where it can take a number of cycles?

I've been through two PoI cycles so I'm 2nd Path by maps that map that way (for the purposes of this discussion, let's just assume this is true, I know diagnosing path attainments over the internet is impossible), and I still experience a center point (sometimes behind the eyes, sometimes in the chest, sometimes more subtle), a body boundary (I'm assuming this means a clear line between "my" body and the "other stuff"), and a personal bubble, so I assume I'm ready for whatever insights result in this path. Is it like 1st and 2nd where basic Vipassana practices will get you there? I've heard Mahamudra can be more appropriate for 3rd, but if there's still a shift to be had from Vipassana I'd like to get there first.

A few months after 2nd path, I experienced an event that at the time, I thought might have been a path fruition. It did seem to produce a new baseline of sensory awareness. I wrote about it in my practice log back in March: 
The "centerlessness" receded a bit after the event, but the rest stuck. On a recent retreat, the same phenomenon occured (flash, flash, flash - dropout) but I was able to discern that it was clearly not a cessation. I was, at the time, in the midst of a heavy A&P experience.

Knowing now that the event described in my log was not a path cessation but seemed to produce a good deal of insight, I guess one could look at it as 2.5 path, but I'm sure not everyone has the same experience.  

2.5 = my first thought of what was the next thingy to get after second. It's a good shift.
Its just a part of the many things that make up 3rd.

Dream Walker, you wrote

"Ok, so I've got somemore to say about stuff - what about taste as a sense? Silly but there is a lot to learn here. Think about a sommelier of wine. What can they taste different than you? Within the realm of gross taste there is a trained nuance of several things. Type of taste,intensity, duration, speed of intensity/fade. As these become multifaceted and overlap that gets you to think about the other senses that have similar and expounded characteristics. Taste has nodirection, or does it? How does it differ from smell? How can a dog track scent? What other things are happening within perception that are unquestioned? Could there be untethered processes that happen that are not related to the 6 senses? Could the attentional system be in control of unknown stuff? If so, could that be a way of finding the way to un-control the controller?"

So I have some data points for you.

You might be intertested that after what I think was second path, I had a moment of the diviine taste. This was mentally perceiving (without vision), mentally reaching up to, and then the tasting of a fruit. The taste was "photorealistic", to borrow a phrase, being completely full and totally authentic, not imagined at all, and in fact one of the tastiest things I have ever had. But it was fully mind created. Thinking about it now, I still have a taste memory of the furitiness, and juiciness, slightly tart but very rich and satisfying, with full and firm flesh. Yum!

Also, after both first and second path I had a second/third screen vision. This was my awareness looking out through parallel greek columns on top of hill over to the sea, with no roof, and ivy growing up the side (clearly a subconcious metaphor for a mind residue, like the stump of a plantain tree). I think this repeated vision was a loosening up of the mind sense, the removing some contraction or barrier between the conscious and subconcious, allowing the subconcious to explain the path moment. 

And when I was at the stage of working on all the perceptions, I would use any full and rich sounds, or smells, or tastes to follow the sensation until my consciousness was in the object, instead of in me. I remember buskers with high quality sound systems at a fringe festival were a particularly good object. Or tasty cooking smells. I would mentally follow the input back, reaching out, to have the awareness dwell in the source of the sensory input.

Love your work.

Malcolm