Dream Walker:
Your discussion about defilements may or may not be path related. Have you tested your "defilements, that is, all desire, attachment, aversions, anger, pride, jealousy, and all negative mind states in general"? It sounds like you are saying meditation in general has helped and approaching life from an Equanimous state had helped you immensely. Have you spent time with your family/difficult people to test this? If I was in a cave I would be Equanimous all the time....it's only around 2 fighting young kids that lets me see how far I have to go in this....Anyway, congratulations on this major achievement.
Great question! The answer is yes! After my second completion of the stages (2nd Path?) I willingly placed myself in situations and amongst those who have been the greatest cause for pain and grief in my life and let my mind do and react whatever way it wishes. Within those few weeks, with no effort to be mindful or to meditate, I simply watched myself, my reactions, my feelings, and my sufferings and took notes. There was still a great deal anguish and suffering as a result. But without effort, there was appx 50% overall reduction in total suffering and defilements (negative reactions and feelings), not as good as I hoped, but significant. Even today, I constantly monitor my behavior and mind to check my progress in other little ways and "benchmark" my mind which I won't detail. Verification for me is very important. But, yes!
Dream Walker:
Explain what you mean by "(when my mind is pure)"; what do you do to do this? When you say "When in this state, nothing affects me because I truly perceive all as self-created illusions trying to grasp at the 6 sense objects." What do you do to enter this state?
I mean pure in a relative way to we normally are in life. A pure mind means a mind that 1) has reduced sense of self referencing (a) no sense of self or (b) sense of self is un-grasped at and itself not referenced, 2) attachment and aversion are only minimally present in the default baseline state. In general, subtle feelings of grasping are at a minimum and there is no wish for anything, a feeling in which all is good, there is almost nothing to do, and self is minimal.
The state can arise spontaneously just due to regular practice, or it can arise through the normal meditation techniques of calming the mind, actively letting go, evoking loving-kindness, etc. I just use the term since I honestly do not have full control to be able to cognize reality in such a way anytime. Only when the conditions are good.
How do I cognize things this way? First, having a good mind basis (pure state) I try experience awareness without conception, ceasing attachments and aversions to all sensations, but also letting go of the process of forming identities and descriptions around them. Then I
allow conceptions to arise, but do not
grasp at them. Its actually quite difficult for me to do, but it is amazing to cognize the formation of conceptions, its objects,
and the bare sensate experience at the same time.
Dream Walker:
3) Another measure of progress is the presence of the sense of self. Nowadays, my sense of self has been permanently (seemingly) reduced, probably again, to 10% of what it was before. It is not completely gone by any means, except possibly during a good sitting. In fact, it feels like I, or my sense of self, survives only as a fragment of its former self somewhere inside this body/mind which is not mine. It is as if, during each Path attainment, my “I” withdrew more and more, like the tide receding from the beach. Even now, these hands typing away seem like just another animated object in my visual awareness.
Can you go into detail of the I/self reduction shifts path by path? What happened 1st path....what happened next etc? You mention your hands typing animatedly, is this always or do you have to shift focus for this to be prevalent? What stage did this happen at?
If you are asking me to explain on the micro level what process the mind went through to get its reduction of self, I can not explain this, except to describe the stages post-11 as I did in another post in this thread. Why this reduces the self is beyond me. On the macro level, all I can say is with each completion of a Path or legitimate insight cycle, the self recedes further inwards like a tide receding slowly from the beach. I believe the 'self' is defined by how much of my 'world' (my body, mind, possessions, goals, etc.) is grasped at or identified as 'me' or 'mine'. The magnitude of grasping and number of objects grasped at recedes or is reduced. This is the best I can explain. If you talk to me much, I identify the micro-process of grasping to play heavily in the role of 'self' and defilements.
Regarding the typing hands, this is a little difficult to answer. There are two dimensions, whether this perception arises, or whether I notice that I am having this perception that was already there. Both of these occur. If my mind is clean, this cognition (emptiness of typing hands!) arises and I may or may not notice. But definitely if my mind is defiled, this does not arise, or is less so. The absolute first time I noticed this was right after 1st Path attainment while trying to type away to record my experience. When there is a change (body or mind) you always notice the change more than if the state was already present. So in this way it is difficult to judge persistent magnitude if you were asking for that. I can say that my typing hands syndrome is definitely deeper now (right now!) than at 1st Path, much deeper.
Dream Walker:
So the I/self comes and goes? There is magnitude? Please explain.
Absolutely, the sense of self is not constant. When I am heavily engaged in life and work and allow defilements to seep through, the self can become quite strong. But then sometimes without effort, the self recedes and there is calm, peace, and a purer mind. I am still trying to understand the causes and conditions that effect the states. During most meditation sessions I can reduce the sense of self into a very subtle state and there is a merging between subject and object. In extraordinary cases, the self seems completely removed and there is nothing there but bare particles or the 6 senses. Or the mental sense of self is no longer identified as self, and the "self" is cognized as a mental formation only and at the same time there is knowledge that the 'actual' self does not exist.
All the self is as a process, in my experience, is the mind habitually grasping at 6 sense objects, it's conceptions of those objects, and identifying them as its own possessions. This includes your own body, mind, perceived identity, good characteristics, material and immaterial possessions, etc. When the self and the grasping are absent, more of reality is uncovered. Somehow the self and grasping just covers our awareness. I am completely speaking from my analysis of my meditative experience so they may not be exactly the way Buddhism explains it.
Dream Walker:
To clarify, do you mean when negative emotional states occur this obscures the general positive ones?
Yes. Defilements truly and literally cover the minds abilit'y to see, to know, to be aware, and to understand. Here is a perfect example. Once right after attaining a Path when my mind felt very pure, I drew a conceptual picture of my sense of self compared to its shadow as a way to visually record how I was feeling. However, at later time, engrossed in daily work as a mfg engineer, with a heavy, defiled, self-filled mind, I came across the drawing and
could not even understand it, even though I drew it! Later on, with a more pure and positive mind, I came back to the drawing again, and understood it right away! It was amazing the cognitive disparity between a dirty and clean mind.
Dream Walker:
I'd be happy to video chat with you on Google hangouts if you have an account....message me if interested.
You have some good stuff happening, I'm glad you are happy with the results so far....that is what is important isn't it? Progress that has positive effects?
Good luck
I do not use Google hangouts but would be more than happy to email or PM. I hope this helps to answer your questions.