Howdy, everyone! I love this forum so much. Long-time lurker.

I first meditated in 2018. I only did it once that year, but it left me with a blissful afterglow and the sense that meditation was important. I'd do it off and on over the following years, but really committed to a regular practice in 2022. Reading Mindfulness in Plain English was motivational, particularly the talk about the part of us that is always rejecting reality, always tensing, always defending and controlling. After hearing Daniel's interview on the Ten Percent Happier Podcast, I read MCTB and fell in love with his approach.

I started noting. I'd do my best to track the breath, noting "breathing" about every 2 seconds. When something distracted me, I'd note that too. I was comfortable going on long tangents, noting random stuff that happened without returning to the breath. I was also practicing throughout daily life.

In July 2023, I went on a 7 day retreat at Deer Park Monastery near San Diego. (That place is nice—super mushroomy, no Noble Silence, no concepts or frameworks, few dedicated practitioners, but cheap, with places to hide away and meditate, and beautiful grounds and helpful monks.) A monk told me to open my eyes as I sit, and this resolved my dullness issues. I reckon I hit the A&P—experiencing reality as super fast and immediate and being totally hyper.

Fear and sorrow soon followed, but it took me a few months to realize it may be the insight stages. I continued noting. While walking, I would use the sensations of my head as a noting anchor. I actually really hated noting with an anchor, and looking back, I probably didn't need one. It felt too contractive. I also hated watching the breath. I eventually dropped the anchor and went wherever the mind took me.

I remember a remarkable session where I started sitting, but spontaneously got up and threw myself around my apartment for an hour, contorting my face in hyperbolic grief, fear, anger, etc. It was all experienced as not-self, with the help of Ken McLeod's "Look at it _____" noting . During this period, I was generally miserable, although this is confounded by it also being my first semester of law school.

I began to experience weird, violent, highly powerful rips of energy enter my sense field and rattle around. I resisted them at first, since it felt like they'd "hit" me and destroy me. But they were harmless, and so I relaxed. It's almost like they were teaching me that there was nothing that could be hit, nothing that could be destroyed.

I also experienced all manner of involuntary movements: swaying, flinching, gasping, convulsions, burying my head, pouting, planting my hands on my face like The Scream. I had to repeatedly resolve: "For the sake of my respiratory system, I will stop gasping."

After a while of that, I would break into Equanimity and feel okay. The fear and anger would abate. And then return. And then leave, and return. The A&P would also recur—during those times, I'm sure some of my friends wondered what I was smoking. Once settled in Equanimity, I dropped noting and just watched the mind without labelling it. I was able to settle in the gentle flow of it all, without controlling where attention went, and then reality stopped and restarted on October 17, 2023.

It felt like I was in a crowded restaurant with a bunch of noisy conversations, but suddenly, everyone started whispering. Thoughts would still come and go, but they didn't yank me around like before. Even though it felt like I had "learned" a layer of the mind, a new one presented itself. I was being tugged along, moment to moment, by non-verbal attraction and aversion. Wanting this, not wanting that, being this, trying not to be that, avoiding this or grasping for that. I had an intuitive confidence that if I watched this process for long enough, it would be put to rest. It was painful! With enough time, I thought my mind could understand that. 

I kept watching the mindstream. One day, I was just laying on my bed, watching the mind, when my body got up and started doing little chores on its own. I realized that I didn't ever need to exert any control at all, and that life would continue on. This allowed me to shed a lot of resistance and guilt about my productivity. Every day no longer needed to be a wrestling match with my mind. I did not need to resist the vices I hated. I could just surrender. 

I went through the insight stages again and had another cessation on November 14. Sometimes, in daily life, I felt like the concept/image of my body would detach from my actual location, and, like, crawl around on the floor or roll around. My senses would stay normal. One day, while studying, I decided to try surrendering while in the very act of studying. Something clicked, and I experienced 10 minutes or so of seemingly no contraction. I didn't keep studying, of course; I walked around outside and checked stuff out. Everything was happening spontaneously with no obvious sense of control. I don't think it was a perfect non-dual experience, though. 

After a third trip through the insight stages, I had another cessation on December 2. This time it happened while I was washing my hands, rather than in formal meditation. Everything did itself, it seemed. Even the emotions. There was still a sense of subtle control, though. 

The next day, I went down to sit and couldn't find any contractions to investigate. This made me nervous: how the heck do I meditate now? I proceeded to massively over-effort my meditation for an hour or so. I hung out with my girlfriend later that day, and I was tense. We were walking down a hallway when I lost the ability to move in anything faster than slow motion. I couldn't think normally, either. Just locked up. It wasn't until I said goodbye and left her building that normal movement returned. I decided to stop juicing the effort so much, and just went back to my normal technique. Within a few days, the remaining contraction bubbled up and became obvious.

About a week later, I was meditating and had another non-dual experience, this one seemingly more centerless and easy. While in it, I ran into my buddy and proceeded to act all goofy. I had to lean on him to walk at a normal pace, but I was able to run on my own. At one point I kind of sunk to the ground and didn't get up, and he asked me why I'm on the floor, and I told him I didn't decide to be on the floor. I was able to get up not soon thereafter, though.

I was able to navigate my finals by just watching my mind. I didn't try to really "take control" at any point. I think that helped keep me sane. My behavior was still not up to my ideals, but it happened on its own. 

The difficult stuff about my experience was no longer the emotions. Rather, it was this burning sensation present in every moment. It was a non-verbal resistance to all experience, a rejection, a greed for something else, a fear, a desperate defense. I had a crushing grief that everyone else was secretly suffering just as much as I was, they just didn't know it.

One day in December, I felt totally depressed. Just hollow. No vigor, even though I was out with my girlfriend and her family. I was sitting in my car afterward, reading this site, when I read a post by someone claiming fourth path. They said that their path-moment came when they realized that "There is no fundamental difference between: an acute lack of self in the fourth jhana; a vague sense of self while zoning out on a long driving trip; and an acute sense of self while shameful" (paraphrasing). My mood suddenly did a 180, everything felt really nice and pristine, and everything seemed to completely do itself. This lasted for maybe six hours. I think I had been really frustrated by being unable to abolish that "vague sense of self" mode, and so this let me let go of that resistance.

I woke up the next day feeling like shit. Everything still seemed to be doing itself though, so I started to believe that I had "done it," and that this was just what it was like. I started looking into Actualism (heh heh heh). I went on another 7 day retreat in January, planning on learning the jhanas because, again, I thought I was "done." Within an hour of that retreat, though, I realized I was very much not done. I pivoted to insight. 

I was doing "drop the ball"/"do nothing" practice, which was nice, but too low-energy. I felt zoned out. I started watching the mind again about half-way through and felt reinvigorated. I felt pangs of fear—not like the hum of the Fear ñana, but more like "slowly falling into the cosmic woodchipper," as Sasha Chapin puts it. 

Toward the end, I would watch the mind and my vision would suddenly become much more panoramic, but then quickly contract again. I went through that pattern many times. "Watching the mind" felt very effortful, like I really had to hold onto this super fast zipping-around thing.

It's April now. The effort I expend has become much more subtle. It's dawned on me that it's really about knowing the moment as it is, however it is. It's not about trying to change the moment by clenching onto some elusive thing. Or vaporizing the moment through ultra-vipassana. My vision is quite panoramic, the non-doer dominates, there is a good amount of space, I don't try to control stuff. I think I've been having a cessation every few weeks.

These days, my practice feels like it's about learning to trust that abiding in presence is truly and always safe.

Since middle school, I've had an urgent feeling of inadequacy regarding my work. It feels like I'm not working hard enough, and so doom is around the corner. 

Recently, I had an essay due, and I had this vivid experience of being totally powerless to work on it for a few days straight. I would surrender, that wouldn't work. I'd try to grip and control as hard as I could, and that wouldn't work. I'd rest and rest and rest and then try to work, and that wouldn't work. It simply seemed impossible to work on this thing. I had to wait until the panic hammer dropped. And once it dropped, I began work effortlessly and spontaneously, and the thing wrote itself.

I've been afraid that this surrender stuff is the cause of my procrastination. I've somewhat quelled this, at least on the not-unconscious level, by repeatedly seeing that contraction doesn't help.
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All I've ever wanted to do is control my behavior. That's why I got into meditation, really. I thought it'd let me work harder, be kinder. I really care about being moral! So it's very frustrating when I don't meet my standards for morality—mostly in the form of not working hard enough.

Yesterday I realized that I was operating on the assumption that what "I" cared about was what the anxious voice in my head cared about. That there was a conflict between "my true desire" and my body which petulantly refused to follow my values. Rather than make any conclusions about my "true values," I could simply accept not knowing what I actually want, be present, and see what happens naturally.

Thanks to Bahiya Babe for encouraging me to start this log. 

That's great detail! You really seem to have a natural sensitivity to the anatta stuff. 

I'm curious about the cessations you mention. What are they like? What ceases?

​​​​​​​

Hi Martin, thanks for reading.

My first few cessations were not so remarkable. I'd be engrossed in meditation, and then suddenly, in the next moment, I was left with the sense that time just skipped. It felt like waking up from unconsciousness; like the mind restarting. I have no memory of the gap. 

More recently, my cessations have gained a "what the fuck" factor. For one, I remember watching one thing happen, then the next, then I saw something much more complete and alarming, and then the next moment felt like "returning from nonexistence." Like I forgot who I am, and it takes a second to remember. 

It's totally possible that the feeling of "returning from nonexistence" is 100% fake and scripted. It all just happens so fast. But as far as I can tell, the practice instructions are the same regardless, so I'm not too concerned.

Thanks! That's helpful.

​​​​​​​I'm just curious about the different ways cessations are experienced. 

What was experience like after this first cessation, day by day, how did you feel, what was different about experience?

During subsequent insight stages, what was different about passing through them from the first time?

Sorry, I can't reliably recall how I felt on the subsequent days. The paragraph about the whispering restaurant captures my day-before to day-after experience. In Equanimity, I was able to watch sensations directly and see them flux, and that became my baseline after the cessation. Vision was more panoramic, I think.

After that point, dark nights were less about being in an angry/anxious/sorrowful mood (and being identified with that mood) and more about putting up with the discomfort of the raw ñana sensations in the body and in 3D space. 

Ok, there was nothing significant about the week after the first cessation, besides this whispering restaurant situation? How do you experience the Nanas or Jhanas? What was your experience of meditation like? 

See, I think cessations while important are also fairly nebulous. I never view reported cessations, on there own, as evidence of anything, it's what follows them that I find to be most diagnostic, in my own experience it's really not the cessations that I'm after.

I'm definitely reading a lot of a&p, dark night and eq stuff but it's hard to know. I hope you keep posting. Keeping a log over the last year or so has been of great benefit to me and I really think it's a wonderful addition to a meditators practice !!

Keeping a log is very powerful because we can transcend any reliance on dharma lingo and through shared communication arrive at a deeper understanding of practice and where we're at. 

​​​​​​​One more question. If you're having a cessation every few weeks. What is the build up to that like? 

I wouldn't say that there was nothing significant about the following days. Rather, I can't recall with confidence; this all happened quite quickly and it all blends together. The restaurant analogy was my attempt to describe a dramatic shift in my mental software.

I do remember sitting down and trying out concentration meditation soon after the cessation and getting a pretty intense body buzz. On a separate day, I tried it out and "I" melded with the nice sensations so that my head felt like a bliss-brick. I'm not sure how that'd be categorized. I quickly went back to insight and haven't made a serious effort to cultivate the jhanas. 

I just updated my last message with another question. I shall add some more here too !!

​​​​​​​What is your experience with the jhanas? Do you find you have access to them? Can you sit and call them up? Have you explored the formless jhanas?

@bahiyababy
The ñanas are much less obvious than they used to be. They don't dominate attention. Fear feels like a subtle hum of terror-sensations. The A&P is harder to miss—it feels like a sudden explosion, some half-real currents of energy swirling around, a little extra energy and enthusiasm and pleasure. If I'm tired, though, my body can feel a little weary of that energy, like a slight burn-out. I think I've experienced Misery as heartbreak-y feelings somewhere in the field recently, but I can't recall. (I don't really track these things, sorry.) Sometimes my hands or lips will feel huge—that's Mind and Body, right? I've experienced the A&P to Fear cycle in the run-up to every cessation so far. 

I make some pretty big claims in this post, so I understand and appreciate your questioning. But as far as I know, my place on the maps doesn't really make a difference technique-wise, right? 

Edit: Also, have you had any experiences with procrastination on the path? Or, more generally, being afraid of losing motivation for something as you surrender?

That's a great question. Yes and no, in my opinion, what is most important is regular dialogue and pointing out instruction and that can largely be done with minimal mapping. Technique can change a lot over time, if often in just very subtle ways. At some point "do nothing" might be enough, we might consider that an advanced practice, yet, a month later we might find ourselves needing to do something more directed, more fundamental. It all shifts and changes. 

On the other side of things there are specific techniques, or even approaches to meditation that I have found useful throughout the stages. Get peripheral during the DN, read Shargrol's EQ stuff when in EQ, etc. The nice thing about keeping a log here is you don't always have to rely on yourself to map (or not map). There's always weird stuff, like the weird meta darknight that can happen in equanimity and beyond first path the sort of fractalling Nanas can be pretty odd. 

By what I've read you've done some great meditation. That's awesome. I commend you for that. I think few people really go this way and I'm always delighted to see people make a commitment to practice. 

I'm not much of a diagnostician. So I'm not actually trying to find out where you're at "on the maps" as much as I'm trying to find out "where you're at". If I thought I could deduce where you are on the maps I would undoubtedly be wrong as I almost always am when I map myself.  

Yeah, it's natural. 

The loosening of attachment can have some very odd effects... but most of the odd effects are fear about losing the attachment or astonishment that we managed to live so long obsessing over such a silly thing. 

I am currently procrastinating !! ;) I have been for months

This is an interesting area. On one hand, it is logical to be afraid of losing motivation for something as you surrender, on the other hand, there is nothing to fear on the other side of surrender (that being the point of surrender).

If motivation for practice decreases proportionally with suffering, there is no problem. I think many people practice, learn/change, and then move on to another life focus. That's fine. If a person doesn't prefer awakening, there is nothing inherently better about being awakened. This does not apply when someone is stuck in an unpleasant part of the POI. A person in that position would want to keep going. But, if suffering is greatly reduced, then the motivation to get it all the way to zero might not be as high as the motivation for other pursuits. Rob Burbea talks about this a lot. (If anyone is interested, I will hunt down one of the talks.)

The thing that keeps me meditating and enquiring is the beauty of it. Meditation itself can be ridiculously beautiful, like a trip to an art gallery. But, in particular, the off-the-cushion stuff, of seeing the world unfold, grows in richness as practice deepens. Seeing both the projector and the screen with increasing clarity is like receiving an unending series of tiny, beautiful gifts. I think that, if you turn to that side of it, motivation will take care of itself. 

Bahiya and Martin, thank you for the beautiful and insightful replies. 

Hey folks. The doubt-wave has subsided, and I'm feeling very safe in presence. Things are often more vivid than I thought possible. Sometimes the dualistic tension is quite annoying. I had a particularly strong Disgust experience a couple days ago.

I recently joined Twitter and found some quotes on the theme of surrender.

Adyashanti
"The desire to control is, ultimately, our unwillingness to just be awake."

"Life sustains itself. Let go of the ego and life takes care of itself through you."

Alan Watts
"No amount of anxiety makes any difference to anything that is going to happen."

Joe Hudson
"Shame is the lock that holds the chains of bad habits in place."

Kali Banks
"Give up the idea of having problems."

Robert Adams
"Never be frightened again by anything. If I can make this perfectly clear to you. Never allow anything in this world to ever frighten you. Allow things to unfold as they may. Just watch and observe, hold on to the truth. Happiness will come of its own accord."

"In Western psychology, we're told that you never give up. We are taught to keep on fighting. But there is nothing to fight, and the only thing you're giving up is your ego. Western psychology has never gone beyond this. Therefore they do not know of life beyond this."

Kaviji
"Surrender is the end
Of the self
That wants to barter its way
Through life."

"The closer you get to the flame
The more of yourself
You must throw into the fire."

"If you realized
That fighting it
Only feeds the pain
You would stop fighting it
And start loving it."

"It’s amazing
How much of our personal suffering
Comes from our argument
With the way we are."

Lao Tsu
"When the ancient Masters said, 'If you want to be given everything, give everything up,' they weren't using empty phrases."

"The Tao never does anything, yet through it all things are done."

"Those who try to control, who use force to protect their power, go against the direction of the Tao."

"Can you remain unmoving till the right action arises by itself?"

Jacob Black
"You don’t have to solve your problems to set down your burden."

Roger Thisdell
"First, I tried to change reality.
Second, I tried to simply understand reality.
Third, I stopped trying to do either.
And then life revealed itself to itself as itself."

Nick Cammarata
"You’re being told the story of your life, and any resistance to the present moment of experience just clogs the system and causes suffering; the story doesn’t want to be interfered with."

Edit: Two interesting experiences that I forgot to mention—

• About a month ago, I was in the Target parking lot when I totally forgot absolutely anything about who I am. It was like that normal hum of aliveness stopped cold. It felt like a huge relief! It felt like that aliveness, that "me" energy, that human energy was none other than SUFFERING. The ego quickly came back online, and I was left with a sense that it'd be just so nice to return to that void. I didn't register this as a cessation then, but looking back I think it was.
• While on my last meditation retreat, I was putting on a sock when suddenly there was absolute and eternal silence and stillness for about half a second. There was no "me" to register this experience. It just happened. There wasn't a sense of it happening; there was no time. Eternal. Silence. There was still perception in some minimal way; there was still seeing of the sock being put on. I'm guessing that was a perfect glimpse of non-duality. In the half a second later, "I" came back into existence. I started defending myself against reality again. It left me with the sense that there was a good way to go before I could drop all those defenses. And that normal experience had so much pain.

Heya. Since my last update, I've started two threads. The first is about whether all sensations are subtle forms of suffering. The second is about loosening my attachment to focused attention.

——

After school ended, I went on a 12-day retreat, during which I wrote:


I was in the Dark Night for the first five days, hit Equanimity, and had a cessation on the eighth day. While my mood improved after the Dark Night, I still retained my general exhaustion with life that predated the retreat.

On the final day of the retreat, I had a very intense A&P that co-incided with me realizing I could stop clinging to the focused mind. I still felt that I had to put in effort to investigate, but I realized that it's a gentle effort, like flowing water. Distraction wasn't a sign of too little effort. Rather, it was a natural cycle of the mind: focused, diffuse, focused, diffuse. I also realized that the sensation of focus and effort wasn't all-important. Vipassana progress happens not just in focused mind, but also in diffuse mind, where there's no effort. Both the focused and distracted states are productive. Indeed, clinging to focus, freaking out when you get distracted, and beating yourself up—that stops progress.

This insight was a tremendous weight off my shoulders. Before, no-self dominated, and daily life stuff was known to be out of my control. But I still felt like I had to manage my focus. Now, there is nothing to manage. I don't create investigation; I am merely present with it when it decides to arise.

——

Even so, I still felt weary of the world. Life was felt to be various degrees of pain with only fleeting enjoyment sprinkled in. Most typically pleasurable moments contained distinct suffering.

My daily practice was mostly walking around, less sitting. I'd have periods where practice was spotty, and for a little bit I barely practiced at all, despite being so desperate for progress. I interpreted this as the mind teaching me a lesson: hey, you don't get to call the shots—watch! That was helpful. Surrender to all things, even laziness. A lesson I have reviewed many, many times. 

The urge to try to cultivate the jhanas sometimes arises, but when I try, the mind moves back to insight within fifteen minutes. It knows what it wants. 

My technique was, and is, being present with what's already here. I don't manage my energy levels; I'm just present with what's already here. Sometimes, other techniques, like metta and mu and noting, spontaneously arise as I practice this technique.

Initially, I needed to exert effort to stay present. That's still my intention. But as time goes on, that effort gets subtler and subtler, and sometimes disappears altogether. My focus object, if any, is whatever's already in experience — which is, you may realize, the same focus object as noting.  

In my early days, I was obsessed with drilling down into experience, penetrating it, grabbing that elusive something, cracking it open to reveal brilliant insights. But really, there's no need. Presence is fine. (Presence is not focus; you can be present in both focused mind and diffuse mind. If you say you're not present in diffuse mind, that means you're identified with focused attention.)

——

I've observed that meditation unwinds our dependence on the noticing mind. Before meditation, to confidently know that we've felt something, we need to notice it. This requires a distinct set of sensations to arise—the sensations associated with noticing something, with clearly holding it. But we feel so much more than we notice. When the noticing mind is dethroned as the arbiter of truth, our experience opens up. Relatively less effortful meditations allow us to feel really subtle aspects of mind. But since the noticing mind might not arise in those moments, we dismiss it as unproductive. At our peril! Precision often requires some relaxation. 

Here are some quotes about surrendering one's attachment to investigation:

Chris M., on techniques for anagamis with regular cessations:


Shargrol, same:

Someone, idk:

The world is bright, beautiful, vivid. It's all vibrations. The remaining solidity has been getting lighter, lighter, lighter. Easy. I can no longer fathom a way to "take control" of experience. It's almost all choiceless—even the sensations of deciding. Yet still, there is dualistic suffering, felt as small 3D spots of burning friction. Sometimes it feels like I'm the one applying the effort in meditation, but often, it's happening on its own. Lurking around is also a kinda-maybe-sorta identification or self that I can never precisely pinpoint or feel. 

In the last week, the body has started sitting for 30-60 minutes in the morning, before the demands of the day. What a beautiful blessing. Hopefully it keeps up. Plenty of other mindfulness time throughout the day — on the bus, walking to class, sometimes walks or sits after school. Still getting cessations. Not sure exactly how frequently, maybe every two to five weeks.

Went on a 2-day retreat before school, where I spent a lot of time in diffuse mind, but was chill about it.  My mood has improved in recent weeks. 

Can you please give a more detailed description of the cessation please? Also how long have you been in high EQ after the DN? 

Hi Papa, big fan of your compilation work. I don't think I can be more specific than my descriptions of cessation above. It seems like you're characterizing my exhaustion with life as a long dark night, but I'm not so sure. These feelings tend to arise no matter the insight stage, although the dark night certainly makes it worse. It is improving with time, though, and has lightened up in recent weeks. 

——

I just read through Chris M.'s log, and wow, what a joy. There's some weapons-grade wisdom packed in there. Taking his cue, I've found it useful to ask myself: "What's my motivation here?" A clear, authentic answer usually reveals itself. This sort of inquiry had mildly annoyed me in the past, because I assumed that this was a task for the conceptual mind and its painful tangles of thoughts and ambiguity. But the body can answer, and the body is simple. 

——

It’s difficult to describe what exactly “focused attention” is with respect to my technique. Currently, focused attention is characterized by a dot in 3D space comprised of the textures of focus. In these moments, I perceive not only the dot, but the vast spatial field in which it appears. If the dot were a color, it’d be brown. The dot tends to stay still, only moving every once in a while. The dot’s disappearance is the hallmark of diffuse attention.

It’s not like the dot is tracking any particular class of sensations. I don’t intend to focus on any one thing. I just intend, vaguely, to focus, and the dot appears somewhere. 

It’s kind of weird. Why do I need to focus? I am able to know the present moment as it occurs, whether I’m in diffuse attention or focused attention. So why bother putting in the effort to sustain the focused mode?

It’s actually not true that my object is the present moment, because in practice, I'm focusing on the sensations of focus itself. I imagine this technique is essentially the same as focusing on mu or another koan mantra. I wonder: would it be possible or productive to drop my focus on focus, and just let the mind do whatever? 

I forgot to mention: I just finished up a remarkable procrastination bender. I had two assignments due this morning. I hoped to complete them yesterday, but I didn't touch them all day; instead, I browsed the web, walked around, and meditated. My bedtime came and went, and I still hadn't started. I ended up staying up until 3 a.m., at which point working became imminently necessary, and so I started working. Didn't sleep at all, but I got both assignments done. Thankfully, I enjoyed a midday nap at the pretty gardens on campus.

This body of mine is a funny one. Just another reason to let go, I think.  

I'm getting the sense that there was never anything that needed investigating or uncovering. Investigation is just a task used to preoccupy the mind so it doesn't cling. The full breadth of reality was always there underneath the clinging.

​​​​​​​Just a way of seeing it. 

A couple hours after my last post, the mind dropped its intention to apply effort in meditation. Everything is simply as it is. No object, no method, no control. This isn't something I was able to do in the recent past, but it's happening now. Sensations of effort still sometimes arise, but they do so on their own, and there is no attempt to invoke or sustain them. Let's see if this ability sticks.

Still going strong. I'm so happy about this shift. Now that the intention to investigate has dropped, the remaining little patches of stuckness are so obvious. It feels inevitable now. 

It is harrowing to contemplate the magnitude of suffering in the world. Past, present, and future contain endless seas of restlessness, desire, and pain. Even if I seal the deal here, I am viscerally aware that the collective consciousness will remain mired in an infinitude of samsaras. I think about this often. I bemoan my limited capacities. 

I don't really know what this word means, but I think "trauma" has a distinct texture to it. It's that feeling of being trapped in something truly horrible, clawing at the walls of existence for an escape that you can't grasp. In recent months, a sense of trauma has been arising. Not for me, exactly, but for the collective consciousness—the aggregation of our individual lights of awareness. It's dissatisfaction, seeking, grief, despair, sickness, ad infinitum. When I personally feel helpless, stuck on the railroaded track of exhausting perception, that helplessness sometimes takes on a timeless flavor. Like, that helplessness has always been there, I have always been seeking, for eons and eons, life after life. And, in a sense that's just as real as anything else, that's true. Because how can I distinguish, in any real way, between myself and those that suffered before me or those that will suffer after me? Nibanna is not the end.

​​​​​​​Almost everyone has felt pain far greater than that of which they will speak. We're taught to hide it, to keep quiet, to disassociate, to stay positive and not burden others. 

Congrats on the shift. It's nice to feel nice. 

There were a lot of interesting things shared towards the end of that positive valence thread. I still suspect there's useful stuff to meditate on there. 

When the time comes. You should keep a regular practice log. Moment to moment stuff. Just the sits. 

The middle length discourses are a great gateway to the suttas. 

Seeing that frees... 

Etc. 

​​​​​​​Best of luck. 

Thanks for the sutta recommendation! I've been wanting to read them for a while.

​​​​​​​You're right, lots of powerful stuff in that positive valence thread—still processing the replies. I don't feel called to log daily sits, but if something interesting happens, I'll post about it. Wishing you the best.

You don't have to log daily but it can be useful to log in a day to day kind of way if you want people to engage with your practice. 

I have no reason to doubt your claims but it can be hard for people to engage with them without the more detailed phenomenological data set that comes with regular logging of sits. 

So, in the future, if you find yourself wanting people to engage with your practice journey or if you're ever a bit lost in the paths then it can be really useful to keep a humble, regular, this is my practice today, this week, type log. 

The demons of the middle paths are attachment to feeling good, arrogance and over estimation of progress. So the kinds of ideas being discussed in the positive valence thread carry a lot of weight. So too will the work of the Buddha. Middle length discourses is where I wish I started. At some point too you can get into seeing that frees and start working towards emptiness and refining your fundamentals. 

It's a great time to double down on the dharma... It's also a great time to take a break. 

If the powers show up then learn to ignore them. Even if you want to explore them. You must know how to let them go. Attachment to the powers is another one of those demons. One I have seen ruin people. 

​​​​​​​Anyway... Nice !!

Thank you for the good guidance, Bahiya. There's definitely room for me to up my phenomenological reporting game. I'll keep careful watch for those attachments as best I can, especially since I'm not working with a formal teacher who can call me on my crap. It feels very cool to be given a legitimate warning about the allure of the psychic powers.

Ever since I accepted that there's no need to will myself out of bed, waking up has been much more peaceful. The day no longer starts with an immediate power struggle. The entrance into the waking mind feels very mindful, very meditative, almost like transitioning from a high-concentration state into vipassana. I usually get the sense that I was continuously aware while asleep, even in the absence of dreams. It's a minimal kind of awareness; no thoughts or noticing, but simply awareness.

Sits continue to be much the same as they were, just without intentional investigation. Thought-tangents come and go in the ordinary way, but there is a sense of knowing them as they occur. I'm currently three days into a dark night that has been quite sad. It kicked off with a particularly sharp disgust ñana. Months-old frustrations re-emerged without reason, I was instantly pissed off by the faces of people on the street, and I had these angry forcing-grabbing sensations around my arms.

I marvel at people who claim that stream entry or similar vanquished almost all of their suffering. All this meditation has cut out vast amounts of struggle from my life, but it's been replaced by a peaceful sense of dissatisfaction and restlessness. Hahaha. I love it, don't get me wrong. 

That's not a realistic outcome, and I don't know any advanced yogis who have claimed that ending almost all their suffering resulted from obtaining stream-entry. Getting to that point usually feels great, and there is often a short honeymoon period after SE, during which everything may feel different. But even if that happens, things return to a more normal appearance and feel. 

Feel free to chime in here, all you advanced yogis.

Three days into a dark night? How do the Nana's evolve in your sits? How are they through out the day when you're not sitting?

I have heard that on one occasion the Blessed One was staying near Savatthi at Jeta's Grove, Anathapindika's monastery. Then the Blessed One, picking up a little bit of dust with the tip of his fingernail, said to the monks, "What do you think, monks? Which is greater: the little bit of dust I have picked up with the tip of my fingernail, or the great earth?"
"The great earth is far greater, lord. The little bit of dust the Blessed One has picked up with the tip of his fingernail is next to nothing. It's not a hundredth, a thousandth, a one hundred-thousandth — this little bit of dust the Blessed One has picked up with the tip of his fingernail — when compared with the great earth.""In the same way, monks, for a disciple of the noble ones who is consummate in view, an individual who has broken through [to stream-entry], the suffering & stress that is totally ended & extinguished is far greater. That which remains in the state of having at most seven remaining lifetimes is next to nothing: it's not a hundredth, a thousandth, a one hundred-thousandth, when compared with the previous mass of suffering. That's how great the benefit is of breaking through to the Dhamma, monks. That's how great the benefit is of obtaining the Dhamma eye."

I've been getting this sensation of a flat upright geometric plane of vibrations sweeping the whole field front to back. Pretty cool. 


​​​​​​​These days, the ñanas aren't emphasized in experience, and I'm often unsure of the exact ñana I'm in. But I'm trying to become more discerning. Here's a low-effort log of ñanas that I've noticed:

• 21st — Dark night
• 22-25th — Not logged
• 26th — Equanimity
• 27th — Cessation
• 28th — A&P
• 29th — Dark night, cessation
• 30th — Normal
• 31st — Normal
• 1st — Dark night, cessation(?)
• 2nd — Dark night
• 3rd — Normal, A&P 
• 4th — Normal 
• 5th — A&P 
• 6th — Disgust, A&P, misery
• 7th — Misery
• 8th — Misery

(I'll start logging the specific dark night stage from here on. I usually felt "normal" in addition to whatever I logged.) 

I haven't picked up on fractal ñanas within a single sit. If I sit for an hour, I don't notice any radical differences in mood. Some subtler A&P energy routinely moves in and out during sits. I've never quite related with Daniel's note about starting all sits "at the A&P," except for immediately after stream entry (and, if memory serves, maybe after the completion of an insight cycle). I do, however, have immediate access to the sensate clarity (i.e. vibrations) that I previously only got in the A&P.

I suspect that I've been relying on mood changes to recognize ñanas, and that I'll become more discerning if I attune to the subtle phenomenological differences described in MCTB (center vs periphery, choppy vs smooth, emphasis on endings or beginnings, things falling apart in re-observation, etc.). Might have to reread a few sections. Currently, my main cues are mania and kundalini and buzziness in the A&P, peripheral spooky-scary-adrenaline freak-out hum feeling in Fear, anger and frustration and restlessness in Disgust, sadness and heartbreak and exhaustion in Misery, impatience in Desire for Deliverance, intensified general dark night symptoms in Re-observation, and unitive chill vibes and smoothness and flowing spaceyness in Equanimity.

While I am interested in gaining better facility with the ñanas and logging them, I have an intuition that precise phenomenological categorizing won't help insight-wise. 

Very hype!

Ok cool... this helps give me some insight into your practice and your experience of the phenomenology that underlies these words. 


As a meditative practice it may not as an aid to communication when speaking with dharma friends it absolutely will. Especially those who might be of assistance when navigating the complexities of later paths. Saying some specific dharma term is worth very little compared to detailed communication of your lived experience. 

For example... "I was in Disgust" means less than "frustration and restlessness", "frustration and restlessness" means less than "I experienced a rapid barrage of disconcerting thought patterns, I noticed how these thoughts seemed to be connected to rapid pulsations of discomfort in my chest and forehead, I watched as narratives unfolded before me, I knew I didn't need to invest in them yet everytime they seemed to wrap me up, I could actually feel myself get wrapped up, contracting into the mess of language..." etc...  

Now, typically for me in a review cycle Nanas change quite quickly, there may be changes over the course of seconds or minutes, at the slowest maybe hours. Also they are very very obvious, very well defined, they flow onward toward cessation without any real practice being done. Though people are different. 

I'm not trying to break your balls over whether you got SE I just don't know a lot about your practice. It's also something most of us have been wrong about at least once. So... as the days go by repeatedly test your assertions. Overall, repeat cessations are typically a good sign, dramatic shifts in perspective are often a good sign too. You can also be wrong about whether you're experiencing these things though I am not accusing you of that. In the future if you can get a little more rich, a little more detailed, a little more lived in with your logs that would be useful to those reading it. 

I recently hurt somebodies feelings because I challenged their assertions about map stuff. I felt they hadn't really shown their work and were potentially using map lingo incorrectly. I don't challenge people on these matters because it benefits me. It's not important that one proves themselves to any of us. It is critically important that as a community (such that we are) we help each other in not deluding ourselves (any further than we may already be). Having high standards for the dharma and for attainments is not a superiority trip on our part. It's a means of ensuring people actually get what it is they're putting in the work to get. 

Rigorous stress testing, radical honesty about practice and acceptance of the humble, non-heroic day-to-day nature of keeping a meditation practice is key. 


 

this is really well said.

​​​​​​​

I'd be far more interested in getting first-person reports, and I'd find them more believable. This is the kind of thing that frustrates practitioners to no end. The suttas say this, then that, and then another thing. And they get quoted on message boards like this one, and then no one wants to contradict them and speak to their own experience for fear of being ridiculed, ostracised, or told they're wrong. Speaking from my heart, it's BS. The best way to get to the bottom of stages and states is for everyone to speak truthfully about their practice and then have other dedicated and experienced practitioners confirm or refute.

Please feel free to report *your* experience.

​​​​​​​(Edited for clarity)

Well, here's what I'll say as a data point...  SE is icing on top of a really nice cake that you learn to bake for yourself.

Most humans can't sit down and be with their own mind. Heck, people lose their cool just having waiting in line for Chipotle and it's even scarier at Hardee's. So just being able to sit and directly experience the mind-body is already a big deal. And if you stick with it long enough and learn to see and drop all of the stupid stuff we do... well you've already made a decent cake. And if you can continue to sit with yourself for hours or days and soak in the similicity of equanimity --- dang! That's 99% of the work right there. 

When SE happens it's like "bonus!" but the hard work had already been done.

But it definitely doesn't eliminate 99% of suffering. What it does do is etch into your mind that NOTHING STAYS. Up could be followed by down, good could be followed by bad, you know you don't know and can't know... so you don't worry about it as much. The best way I would describe it is life feels sort of playing a video game with unlimited respawns. You can't really take things as personally as you did before because you know what ever exists right now is going to change in some way and it's probably beyond your control. 

The idea of SE as a "fix" is a nice motivation, but it's actual process of understanding and learning from everything-but-SE where the actual change occurs.

It's funny after SE, it's sort of like beginning all over again with new sensitivity. As Bill Hamilton said "suffering less, noticing it more"

I agree with everything you said, Bahiya, and I am glad that you push myself and others towards greater clarity, even if it ruffles some feathers. Your example is helpful. I think you allude to this, but I would like to add that "magnitude of perceived control" is a very informative diagnostic signal. And I've seemingly derived great benefit from optimizing for this signal. Of course, there is a misreporting risk here. Any perceived lack of control (or, if you prefer, authorship) should first be established as stable over the long term. A yogi's magnitude of perceived control is not determinative of a diagnosis; the ñanas are also important.

The general pattern I've observed is (1) I feel like I create the phenomenon, (2) I stop trying to create the phenomenon, (3) the phenomenon sometimes arises by itself, but there is still a sense that I could create it, (4) that phenomenon always arises by itself, but there is still a sense that I could create it, and lastly (5) that phenomenon always arises by itself, and there is no sense that I could create it. This has played out in increasingly subtle layers of mind. If a yogi can describe this to me with respect to a particular phenomenon, it would tell me a lot about where they're at.

When I started this log, I was at #5 with emotions, #4 with work and bodily movements, and #1 with focused attention. Now I am at #5 with work and bodily movements and at #3 with focused attention.


I'm a little confused, so here are some questions for my own edification. By review cycle, are you referring to the Review stage or a post-anagami insight cycle? These quickly-changing ñanas that you mention—are they first-level ñanas (i.e. a regular-ole ñana) or second-level ñanas (i.e. a ñana within a ñana)? In other words, is there a macrocycle above these quickly-changing ñanas you point out?

If these quickly-changing ñanas are first-level ñanas, how long does it take you to complete an insight cycle?

If these quickly-changing ñanas are second-level ñanas, do they feel like a blend of the first-level ñana and the second-level ñana, or entirely like the second-level ñana, or the first-level ñana but somehow experienced in a second-level ñana way?

That is a really simple and accurate way to describe it -- well said!

All true and well said, shargrol. But my point stands. I can find a master, a teacher, a sutra or some other article that will contradict  pretty much anything anyone posts here.

too true!

Ok great questions, i hope this answers them. 

So, before stream entry the Nana's were for me very well defined but also relatively stiff. I would be in them usually for a number of days. The first time they really showed up I had an extremely intense journey through them over a month or so, got to equanimity, thought I was a stream enterer and gave up practice for a year. I eventually realized I was not and that I was really just suffering way too bloody much and a year later I committed to getting SE and did. It also took about a month, practicing several hours a day. (Maybe less than a month)

After SE I was in a review cycle. I would pass through Nana's from A&p to EQ, all day, whether I practiced or not. I would have cessations occur just walking around. In meditation I could pass through Nana's extremely quickly, I could call up much more high powered jhanas and to some extent I could manually move the Nana's back and forth but I didn't really do this much because it was more enjoyable to let them glide by. 

A little while after stream entry something like first path showed up but was extremely wispy, I sat in meditation and worked through a whole path cycle from 1st nana to eq in a couple of hours had a cessation and was back in review. 

Another while later I had something identical to first path show up, it took a few weeks to work through and upon completing that I was back in review. 

When second path showed up it was obviously fractal. Each nana had a path cycle inside of it. Second path was a little longer, weirder and required more subtlety than 1st but overall not much more difficult. At this point I was practicing a lot, I can't remember how long it took to get second but I do remember I was often practicing for entire days. I don't think it took much longer than first but it was definitely more subtle, more difficult. 

(Note for clarity: It takes an amount of time for the next path to really show up and I don't know if you can quantify that but it seems to be usually a few months for me. The easiest way I found to tell was that the openness of a review cycle started collapsing down into the sort of more limited attention of the early nanas. Additionally paths can reoccur, for example, after SE you may have to redo first path as I describe above. If you expand this out in your mind what it might be like say three paths in, when you're already dealing with a fractalling path, one might get a good feel for the shift I outline below, in how we relate to the paths, post 2nd.) 

Ok...

Beyond second path everything is a mess and nothing makes sense. Nor can it be made sense of. Paths become fractals in a non obvious way, for me it was/is often never fully clear where in a path cycle I was. Sometimes some surface level path was going by quickly whilst some deeper path was slowly morphing underneath the surface of my experience. 

I probably did 100+ full path cycles after second path. I suspect I could have done 1000's. But what's important to understand is these numbers don't really mean anything anymore. It was for me impossible to actually quantify what was happening. I don't believe getting third has anything to do with completing path cycles. I had to discover emptiness, I had to bring emptiness through my experience and then I had to have an insight into the nature of experience that allowed third path to be known. 

From third path on it seems to be a lot about having these kinds of insights. It's a lot about understanding dependent origination on an intimate level. paths and stages are of little consequences save that sometimes important insights can be teased by A&p experiences and things we are still very averse to can show up in the dark night. So in that sense stages are useful to reflect on and investigate but it's not about stages, or paths, or how many cycles or anything like that. It's not really even about how long anything takes. It takes what it takes. 

When I got stream entry I thought "well guess I just have to do that three more times"

But that's really not how it is. The complexity curve is steep. The first couple paths are I think just preparing the mind for deeper investigation. 

I was having experiences that seemed like enlightenment from second path on. There's lots of very intense, very pleasurable, very transcendental things that can occur. 

​​​​​​​I wrote above about stress testing our own assertions. I am at a place with my practice where I no longer make assertions about where I'm at and if some far wiser sage than I comes along and says "oh you seem to be here" I genuinely don't formulate any attachment to that either. Not because I think they're wrong but because beyond a certain point knowing where you are isn't functionally very useful, other thann friendly encouragement and perhaps some practice suggestions, and anyway you're rarely in a situation where anybody can say where you're at with 100% certainty.

It's like you're in an rpg and the first quest you manage to defeat a goblin and then you move on and manage to take out the leader and all his minions and then the next thing that shows up and terrorizes the realm is the spawn of some impossible Eldritch monstrosity. It's utterly unclear how you're supposed to square up to such a beast, it's not even clear what direction you ought to travel in to deal with it, but nonetheless you continue adventuring and tendril by tendril more of the cosmic knot monster is known and thus more of its connection to this plain of existence is severed. 

annnnd.... that's the plot for Baldurs Gate 3.