Hi everyone!

First post here after reading MCTB II for the first time.I’ve been an on-and-off meditator for about 32 years, since I was 13. But I’ve never really mapped my progress or had anyone explain where I was or am, and I think it’s probably a good idea to at least try to find out.

I’ll try to keep this as concise as possible, and any help would be appreciated.
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Early practice

I learned what was essentially ‘watching the Watcher’ practice when I was 13 from a random martial arts book. Maybe because I was young, I found it relatively easy to slip into Watcher mode, although I never really knew what it was.

In my teens, I remember a strange dream where I was flying through geometric shapes (rectangles, triangles, etc.).

That wasn’t too strange, but when I woke up I felt as if I was shaking and vibrating all over. Now I do wonder if it was just a dream.

20s and 30s

I attended three 10-day silent meditation retreats in my 20s and 30s, the first in a Goenka center and the last two in a Thai Forest monastery.

The first was basically hell; I didn’t enjoy it at all. The second was smoother, and I remember playing around with an idea the teacher had planted – that awareness was like an empty light and needed an object to define itself.

I sat, tried to look for the observer, and realized I couldn’t find it unless I created an object for it to recognize. Now I’m not sure if that was just vivid imagination or something else.

My last retreat was the best. It was tough, but I actually enjoyed it. During the last third, I managed to sit for an hour a few times without moving, once by narrowing all concentration into a single point and another time by expanding it into wide open space.

I must say I had no idea what I was doing at the time – all I knew of meditation practice was to simply focus on the breath. So these were experiences that simply arose from doing that.

During the last two days, I noticed an odd disconnect between sense contact and mind recognition, as if there were a delay between seeing something and recognizing it. Unfortunately, this experience wasn’t very stable and I felt like I was on the cusp of something, but it was the last day of retreat and I lost it.

(An aside: my spouse, who has a sharp nose, said I smelled like sandalwood after I got back from the third retreat. Oddly, the Thai monastery didn’t burn incense, so it wasn’t like I was ‘smoked’ like a salmon. The smell disappeared after a few days, otherwise I could have saved money on cologne.)

40s

My practice has taken a sharp nosedive since I unexpectedly became a dad in my 40s. Now it’s all I can do to grab 10 minutes here and there. It makes me sad at times, but I’ve come to terms with it and try to turn whatever I have now into learning experiences. I tell myself that perhaps I’m being forced into my ‘compassion’ training phase whenever the kids are screaming.

I don’t have high expectations right now. At most, I’m trying to attain full concentration during the short sits I have, and then during the day. After the kids are older, let’s see.

I will add that sometimes I see a bright white light appear in the upper right corner when I do concentration meditation. This has actually happened quite frequently throughout the years, but when I try to focus on it, it dissipates. I’m not sure what this means and would appreciate any advice.

​​​​​​​That’s it in a nutshell. Not trying to gauge my levels of attainment – I still consider myself a beginner after all these years – but I thought it might be insightful (hee hee) to hear what others with more technical expertise might think. Thanks if you’ve read this far.

A few notes basis what you have written.

"but when I woke up I felt as if I was shaking and vibrating all over"

Stable attention practice where one places their attention on an object, could be  the perception of the breath, could be 'the still point', could be the sense of the one who is watching leads to a deepening of samadhi. Relaxed unification of the mind. This deepening involves going through 'obhasa' or hallucinations - be they audio, visual, or tactile hallucinations. If one continues to practice by training one's self to completely ignore these obhasa one enters access concentration which is the point one can start cultivating the jhanas

"I sat, tried to look for the observer, and realized I couldn’t find it unless I created an object for it to recognize"
 "I noticed an odd disconnect between sense contact and mind recognition, as if there were a delay between seeing something and recognizing it"

This reminds me of the Nama Rupa Pariccheda nyana - the knowledge of how awareness/recognition/naming works with perturbations of awareness. Here we start to get a glimpse of how experience and experiencing is like a diad, both going hand in hand. There is a perturbation in awareness. The perturbation is a unique experience and awareness of that perturbation is a unique experience but they always go hand in hand. That which we are aware of we recognize and we name as unique individual functions which are independent of the perturbation and the awareness of that perturbation. This gives us a peek into the layered, put together, construct nature of experience as well as experiencing.

"I will add that sometimes I see a bright white light appear in the upper right corner when I do concentration meditation"

This is again most likely 'obhasa' or hallucination. Best to be ignored.

Please Note: This isnt intended as a diagnosis, its just things that jump out of your writing. You have been at this meditation thingy for quite a while, obviously you cannot remember everything significant and record it here.

​​​​​​​Best of luck in your journey as a new parent. It is challenging but also deeply rewarding

 Hi Alvin,

Welcome! It's nice to read about your experience today. You have a good clear writing style.

You say that you've never really mapped your progress or had anyone explain where you were, and you think it’s probably a good idea to at least try to find out. That makes sense. 

You also mention that you have worked in several different traditions, which is sometimes helpful, because it can teach us to make room for different perspectives. Also, every tradition has its own map (or no map).

One way of thinking about this is to say that, there is not just one map, but rather a range of maps, each covering different territory and so there is no way of finding out where you are in absolute terms by locating yourself on one particular map. That is to say, you can only find out where you are in relative terms, in relation to other stages on that particular map. Another argument is that all maps are trying to map the same territory and some are just better than others. For reasons that are too long to write out here, I don't agree with that view, but I do acknowledge that it is a commonly held view (with most of those people thinking their map is the best).

If you take the "multiple territories" view, then a question worth asking is: where do I want to go? If you ask where you are, and are told that you are at position F, and so you should head in the direction of G, that may be very useful, but only if you are interested in getting to G, and possibly Z, on that map. On top of that, it's worth thinking about what places like L, M and N on that map are like. Do you want to spend time there? What if you got stranded at Q? MCTB II is pretty explicit about the dangers of getting stranded in the wrong place. Other maps can lead people to different types of unpleasant territory too. 

If you take this view, it could make sense to ask, not just where you are, but also, where you can go from where you are, and where you want to go? 

Because you haven't practiced exclusively in one tradition, like the Mahasi noting that MCTB II describes, or Rinzai Zen, for example, it is not going to be easy for anyone to put you on a detailed map like the Progress of Insight stages or the Ox Herding Pictures. But it might be possible for you to evaluate what your strengths are in meditation and contemplation (by which I mean the off-the-cushion side of practice). For example, it sounds like you have experienced side effects of concentration (bright lights) and some insights born of concentration. Concentration is a bit of a talent thing. Some people find it easier (and more fun) than others. You mention that you were able to do some longer sits, this can sometimes be an indication of strength in mindfulness. Also, generally, we are often strongest at those things we find most interesting. These strengths could tell you something about where you can more easily go.

But the question of where you want to go is probably the most important. Are you driven by a sense of curiosity, a search for truth, a search for beauty, a need to escape or reduce immediate suffering, a need to come to terms with existential doubt, or something else?


 

"I don’t have high expectations right now. At most, I’m trying to attain full concentration during the short sits I have, and then during the day. After the kids are older, let’s see.

I will add that sometimes I see a bright white light appear in the upper right corner when I do concentration meditation. This has actually happened quite frequently throughout the years, but when I try to focus on it, it dissipates. I’m not sure what this means and would appreciate any advice."

I've got two kids in my 40's! Lots of diapers Im telling ya! AND ... Ive done lots of meditation too, while minding the kids sleeping or else when time is private enough. Lots can be done if one finds 45-60 minutes once a day to sit! Keep it consistent for at least 6 months! No cheating allowed You can start a daily log here on DhO! Like many of us already did or still so do! 

That bright light is not a hallucination but a "matter of fact" arisen and then passed away experience!!! Next time see if it lasts? This is Impermanence! Ok. So ... is there a feeling tone arising with this white light? Observe it! What is it??? Start a daily log on DhO as many of us did and folks will have better info from you so to offer a better advice! 

Best wishes to you and may you be free from suffering, may you awaken, may you truly be happy! 

Thank you Martin! This is food for thought.

In my 20s, I was driven by the idea of enlightenment. You mean I could see through the Matrix to this thing called ‘ultimate reality’? Sign me up! If I had known what was what then, I would have gone hard on insight practices.

In my 30s, I was driven by emotional pain, as I was going through some tough times for a long time. Buddhism promised a way to relieve suffering, so I wanted to try it. Now I realise I was trying to work on content rather than insight, but that’s where I was.

In my 40s, with a busy job and two kids, I just want to focus on concentration so I can remain functional and engaged. It’s enough for me to be mindful, reduce stress and keep in touch with the path. I don’t think I can handle any of the destabilisation written in MCTB about the insight path.
However, and I hope this is not naive, but my long-term goal is to one day obtain stream-entry at least, to be able to see for myself directly the path beyond theory.

It’s encouraging to hear from another parent in their 40s Papa Che Dusko

It’s tough to get time alone, but a big blocker is also the exhaustion from lack of sleep. With one I could still steal some time away or use the time before sleep, but with a second one it’s all hands on deck. Hopefully when the smallest is older then I get more time back.

Best wishes to you and yours too.

Thank you for your reply Adi! I’ve been at this for a while, but I’ll be the first to admit that I’ve never been good at being consistent.

I will say being a parent has been the hardest thing I’ve done so far. It’s sometimes hard to see the light at the end of the tunnel so any encouragement is appreciated.

 Thanks for replying!

Some people meditate because they have what we might call a "suffering emergency" while others are doing OK but have a sense that meditation could improve things and are curious about where it could lead. You seem to be in the second group, which gives you a lot of leeway in terms of practice. 

As for timing, I can mention that I began sitting in my late 30s, as a father of a four-year-old, and I kept practicing as a stabilizing practice/hobby until my late fifties, when it changed and became very profound and transformative. My point being that awakening can happen later in life, and that maintaining a practice without intense time commitments can still be very useful. That is to say, you can, to some extent, bank it.

So, getting back to your question about where you are, I would say that you are in the position of being an experienced meditator with decades of meditative and contemplative practice to draw on. And that in itself may have more prognostic power than a location on the progress of insight map. 

You mention that you are working on concentration. That sounds good. When we are tired and stressed, samatha (clam) and spaciousness, in particular, as opposed to one-pointed concentration, can be useful. You might be interested the techniques described by Thanissaro Bhikkhu in https://www.dhammatalks.org/books/WithEachAndEveryBreath/Section0007.html  These are very light and relatively easy-to-access jhana states. 

In terms of being functional, engaged, and mindful, reducing stress and keeping in touch with the path, I wonder if you have read, Seeing That Frees, by Rob Burbea. It is a fantastic practical guide to emptiness which I would think would be well suited to reading in pieces when a busy person has time. There are also short meditation practices to go with the teachings. A little bit of emptiness can go a long way when dealing with the demands of a busy life!




 

Hi Martin,

I appreciate you sharing your story. Truth be told, I’d half-worried that I was past my ‘prime’ years of meditating, but what you’re saying is exactly what I hope to achieve.

When you say calm and spaciousness as opposed to one-pointed concentration, do you mean ’shamatha without a sign’ type of meditation – basically awareness on awareness without honing it down to a single-point, e.g., the breath?

If so, I do find it very comforting to practice, especially during stressful times. Although I do find it sometimes difficult to balance the energy and concentration needed without spacing out entirely.

If this is not what you mean, I’d love if you could say more.

One point of confusion I’ve always had is that no matter how strong my single-pointed concentration became, even in one-hour sits, I never experienced the joy that other meditators seemed to. At the most, I’d experience a pleasant sensation that the mind has dropped most of its incessant processing and quietened down.

I’d thought that this was because my access concentration wasn’t strong enough, but have I been missing other pieces of practice as well?

The 40s is kind of magical time for meditation -- you've seen enough of the world not to be delusional about spirituality (no temptation to join a cult or believe in woowoo) and death isn't an abstract idea anymore so you know that life is uncertain and time may be short. And you have real responsibilities and relationships that get tainted by any of our psychological garbage/reactivity. So meditation makes a lot of sense and has a lot of benefits in a very very practical way.

It usually takes some kind of realization, though, to make sitting a priority. Either some kind of trauma/suffering or some kind of inspiration/clarity. For me it was a sucky personalities in my work life and the arrival of a book in ~2007 -- I was 37 -- that synthesized all the aspects of spirituality into a coherent map (Table of Contents – MCTB.org).

Like most people that read that book, I had an initial attraction toward concentration practices and even had an email conversation with Daniel who encouraged my interest in jhanas, I got the dharma talks from jhana retreats and other books on jhana to read/study... I got the book "Mindfulness, Bliss, and Beyond" by ajahn brahm and the Jhana talks by Tina Rassmussen and Steven Snyder... but like you I could only get so far.

I remember talking with Chris M. in Chicago, sorta asking about ajhan brahms book and asking for advice. And what he said was deeply profound and wise and compassionate and insightful... "I think you should probably take that book.... and throw it away."

And really, that's what I needed to hear. I started focusing on noting practice and my practice took off. I did what I could do. The jhanas came later, no problem. 

Noting practice put me face to face with my own fears and egotism, so it wasn't sugar sweet. But I was already a quintessential fully-functioning dark night yogi (professional job and okay life, but not content/happy and prone to depressions) for a few decades, so I was just face to face with what I was already experiencing. 

Just wanted to add that in as a data point. Everyone needs to find their own practice path. There isn't "one right way". 

Yes, that is basically what I meant. Or at least, that is basically what I said, but I was really thinking about something a little broader than whether or not you are working with a meditation object. You probably know all of what I am about to say already, but I'll flesh out what I was thinking, because I sometimes find that, when I use jargon, what I thought a word meant and what the person I was talking to thought the word meant are not the same.

I think that concentration practices all aim at quietening the mind, which can allow jhana factors to arise and, more importantly, can create a situation in which the fundamental operations of the mind can be clearly observed. I also think we can broadly divide the mind-quietening techniques into two types.

The first type is based on allowing all of the mind's attention to be lavished on a single object. By doing so, every other activity of the mind loses energy and goes quiet, eventually stopping entirely. Examples of this type include the teachings of Ajahn Brahm, Leigh Brasington, Pa-Auk Sayadaw, Culadasa, Beth Upton, Bhante Gunaratana, etc. It is also the type that I am best at (not that I can do all of the techniques in that list, btw) but it requires a certain vigor and ardency and, at the same time, doesn't lend itself to forcing. For me, anyway, I have to really want to follow the object. There has to be genuine interest, curiosity, etc. That's where the ardency and vigor come in. And it takes time. When I sit down, the mind is doing all its usual stuff and it takes at least 15 minutes to quiet down. When I started, it took hours, or indeed days, to quiet down. So, when I have low energy, or limited time, or a busy mind, this is not always the best option. Just clamping down on the object come hell or high water can leave the mind tense and tired, without much actual benefit. 

The second type is based on directly quietening the mind, with or without a chosen meditation object. I guess ’shamatha without a sign’ would fit into this (though I haven't actually practiced anything with that name). Other examples are TWIM, the teachings of Stephan Proctor, and Thanissaro Bhikkhu's approach to jhana. The key feature of these systems is that, when you see a perturbance of the mind, you take action to reduce the perturbance, such as relaxing, or allowing, or softening. Sometimes I can do this sort of thing just by saying "shush" :-) I do find that it is easy to space out in these practices and even to end up with what I call "cotton ball mind." But, when they work, they can bring about a transparent stillness fairly quickly. And even when they don't work very well, I will probably be more relaxed and more spacious than when I started. This sort of practice can also have a momentum or cumulative impact over days and weeks, which is probably easier to get going than the momentum of the first type of practice. 


This may be something that working with the second type of practice can be helpful with. These practices typically include steps or mental postures for encouraging, enhancing, or allowing pleasant sensations. For example, keeping a very slight smile while doing this sort of practice can have an outsized impact (my guess is that there is a physiological basis for this). 

That said, once you have strong access concentration, the joy is pretty easily accessible. So it could just be a matter of cumulative time and insight. I say this because I spent about 15 years doing insight meditation, off and on, in the style taught by the Insight Meditation Society, combined with some more-or-less accidental concentration practice but never had any joy. Then, one day, some time after reading Right Concentration and trying the techniques in there, I had more joy than I could handle. It was like a massive valve opened and stayed that way. Maybe I just put in some requisite number of hours. But when I looked back on my practice before that time, there were lots of unusual, or at least unusually prominent, sensations arising, that I did not find pleasant or joyous at the time. And when I spoke to my teachers about them, they all said, just ignore them. But after my breakthrough, I found that those sorts of sensations did, in fact, have pleasurable components and I am pretty sure that, had I known to cultivate the pleasant components of sensations that arise in concentrated sits, I might have progressed much faster. Who knows. So maybe it's worth investigating whatever sensations are there, and see if that leads to joy. 

I have one last comment to add to this ramble. You mentioned a bright white light appearing in the upper right corner. If this is diffuse, it could be an indicator of the onset of access concentration. In that case, it is best to keep on with whatever you were doing, rather than trying to focus on the light. If the light stays for a while (several minutes at least), that could be a time to look for pleasant sensations. On the other hand, if this happens in very long sits, or on retreat, and the light is very bright and has a well-defined shape, it could possibly be a nimitta, in which case the instructions are the same, but you wait for it to move into the center of the field of vision and then, when it is maximally bight and beautiful, you can let yourself absorb into it. 

Needless to say, all of this is in service of insight, so in many respects, the practice is perhaps more useful than the results. 

Thank you for sharing that shargrol. I hear you on that there isn’t any “one right way”, if only because all of us are at different stages and need different practices to push us along.

On that note, can I ask if you ever found anything that helped with healing depression and finding happiness? I’m not sure I’d think of myself as a dark night yogi, but I am certainly prone to depression, and it is something that always seems to cycle back for me.

Hi Martin,

Yes, this has been my experience re: the first type of concentration as well. It can take quite a while for the mind to settle, which unfortunately I don’t have at the moment. And then raising the intensity just to keep focus has left me tense and tired for the rest of the day as well.

I’ll try switching over to the second type of concentration to see how it goes. Sounds like this might fit in better with my life situation at the moment.

Thanks for your advice about the white light. Right now it’s pretty diffuse although sometimes it fills my field of vision, but again it’s not very stable (flickers in and out, away and back) and no joy. I’ll see if it ever changes.

Yeah, the short answer is for me becoming a serious meditator, having a consistent daily practice, going on occasional retreats, and working with mentors/meditation friends, (and most of my free-reading, youtube, spent on meditation and related psychology ideas)... it all worked for me. It wasn't easy and I suppose if I put the same effort into a different modality (therapy, etc.) it might have gotten the same result, but meditation seemed the direct way to figure out why I was needlessly suffering, why my mind made life more difficult than it needed to be.

Once I got serious, it took about 7 years, but with reductions in suffering occuring all the time. It really is ridiculous how difficult I made things for myself in the past, but I can understand the whole picture now.

The most important thing is figuring out what you actually want to fix. My own advice, worth what you paid for it, is that the best meditation practice works directly on the problem. It seems like when people medititate and hope it fixes problem X, then that's just hope as a strategy. ("Somebody said that if I develop mindfulness and/or develop concentration, then X Y and Z will be fixed. Maybe I'll learn jhana and it will fix everything else in my life. I hope that's true...") But when meditation is directed on the problem itself (investigating the nature of apparent aversion, fetishized greed, boredom/ignoring) then it's likely to have a benefit. ("When I sit in meditation, I can see that there is unnecessary reactivity even though I'm in a safe room with nothing I need to do. I'm going to spend this time investigating the nature of this unnecessary reactivity as a meditation. It makes sense that as I learn about it in the safety of a meditation practice, I'll be less likely to be overwhelmed by it in my daily life. And when my mindfulness of reactivity gets strong enough, I can actually practice in my daily life too.")

It will be clear when you find a practice that "works" because you'll be motivated to sit even when you aren't motivated to sit.

"can I ask if you ever found anything that helped with healing depression and finding happiness? I’m not sure I’d think of myself as a dark night yogi, but I am certainly prone to depression, and it is something that always seems to cycle back for me."

The 1. Noble Truth is "there is suffering" This is where you are at on your journey! Now you want to get some energy together and effort to get the daily practice going. Give it at least 6 months time of daily practice before changing "methods". Noting is a great tool at this part of the journey!

The 2. Noble Truth is "clinging leads to suffering"

The 3. Noble Truth is "there is a path that leads to the ending of suffering"

The 4. Noble Truth is "the end of suffering" (as in trully happy)

Get going! No time to waste! 

BTW, there are two (no surprise here) views about meditation practice and these are:

1. I will gain something through practicing meditation  

and 

2. no matter how much I meditate, I will lose  

Both seem very valid from my point of view!  

​​​​​​​Welcome to the club!