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Please Describe Your High-EQ "Formations"

Dear all,

As I mentioned on a thread soliciting descriptions of the Three Doors, editing of draft MCTB2 has begun. Another chapter that I expect that I will heavily query is the one that discusses "formations" in High Equanimity. I feel that High Equanimity deserves considerable close attention and maybe expansion. After all, this is the stage out of which cessation and fruition arise, and navigating it, in my experience, is tricky. 

One controversial description with a controversial label in MCTB1 is Daniel's "formations." I think he's even considered removing that word from the book altogether, because of the seemingly interminable questions about what one is actually looking for in the stage called High Equanimity Concerning Formations.

I have several thoughts of my own on this topic. First of all, when I read MCTB1 I got the impression that "formations" where somehow first clearly experienced only in High EQ, even though Daniel does write that "from a high dharma point of view, formations are always what is occurring"--or something like that. When I looked up the Progress of Insight online, I noticed that the "knowledges" include the word "formations" much earlier, down in the A&P stage or even earlier, I believe. These "formations" are the concept of Saṅkhāras, correct? I believe Thanissaro Bhikkhu and others call them "fabrications" to emphasize that they are temporary conglomerations of conditions and sensations, "that which is put together." We apply labels to these fabrications in order to confer on them a stable reality that they don't "really" have.

Our so-called consciousness ("constructed consciousness") is also a fabrication intimately tied in with karma and the 12 links of becoming, such that even an Arahat displays the karmic traces of personality, suffering, and imperfect actions by virtue of having been born. In other words, an Arahat, as a contructive consciousness has stopped constructing, stopped fabricating, stopped creating karma, but as constructed consciousness, he or she still plays out a psycho-physical substrate, a personality, the traces of a karmic heritage. I've seen Daniel explain this in several threads on the DhO to counter continuing expectations that an Arahat be a perfectly pain-free saint. See [url=]this.

Anyway, to me Daniel's introducing "formations" all of a sudden in that late EQ chapter seemed to imply that maybe he was talking about a category of experience unique to EQ--despite his breezy disclaimer to the contrary, despite his saying that formations are always what is occurring. So my takeaway was, "Oh, they are always occurring, but we can't see them until High EQ." So I thought MCTB "formations" were a category of experience like "vibrations," and I looked for something that would replace "vibrations" in high EQ. Oddly, I found it, and I actually saw, every night for 2 months, what I thought were formations--and I saw them as distinct things, in the way that vibrations are things.

At any rate, if you have experienced "formations" of whatever definition in High EQ, would you please describe the experience to the best of your ability below? And feel free to comment on Daniel's use of the term formations in MCTB2.

With gratitude for your help,

Jenny



I was always confused by the MCTB description of formations. Like you, I felt that their presentation there gave them some mystical quality that only applied to EQ. My current take, though, is that formations...fabrications...are what the mind does all the time, and that the real point of that nana is that you have equanimity towards them. You don't get engaged, trapped, or seduced by them. They just form, and go away, while you dispassionately watch.

I am also finding (since EQ is where I am currently at) that in higher EQ, the formations themselves slow down in the sense that they present themselves to be more easily inspected.

Just my 0.02.

Here's an old thread that sums up some of the difficulties surrounding the discussion of "formations." Tommy M's post is particularly helpful, I will paste it below.

thread
It's not a hopeless request, it's actually something which is worth asking about as formations are notoriously difficult to discuss. Dan's descriptions of formations in MCTB are very difficult to follow since he's had a lot of experience with this and has examined formations at a level which is difficult to fully understand so I think, and no disrespect to Daniel, that it's easy to get confused by this. I know 3rd & 4th Path yogis who say that they've got no idea what he's describing but I think much of this has to do with Daniel's technical approach and efforts to give as much detail as possible. 

So, my (quite possibly incorrect) understanding and experience of formations is this: Formations contain all sensory information (at the six sense doors) of a single moment of experience. They're like the building blocks or basic templates of dualistic experience since they contain all sensation from space and time, to the breath in the body. They occur constantly but this dualistic perception sees a "break" between each formation which creates the sense that each moment is somehow seperate from the last. Basically, formations are what occur all the time and contain all potential sensations which you could possibly note. Examining them closer allowed me to experience a gestalt of the moment i.e. all sensation at once in a unified sense field.

He was a great contributor, it is unfortunate that he is no longer active online. Perhaps this will be of assistance when it comes to trying to sort out exactly how one experiences formations, and how this can be addressed in MCTB2.

Jen Pearly:
At any rate, if you have experienced "formations" of whatever definition in High EQ, would you please describe the experience to the best of your ability below? And feel free to comment on Daniel's use of the term formations in MCTB2.
With gratitude for your help,
Jenny

Lemme give it a shot and see what people think. -

Formations - Discrete units of sensory data packets that make up all perceived reality. These packets are usually overlayed such that the arising and passing away and discreteness is blurred into a continuous experienced reality. During the A&P phase the discreteness of each packet is perceived with greater clarity and the Arising and passing away phase is seen clearly. In high EQ the packets are seen with even greater clarity and the gaps between each passing away and the next arising is perceived making them completely discrete. The gap is then observed in such a way that consciousness is sucked into the gap and cessation occurs.

For an extremely geeky analogy see page 40- of Shinzen Young's PDF - http://www.shinzen.org/Articles/WhatIsMindfulness_SY_Public.pdf
From thread - Formations - clarification / confirmation / question
Dream Walker:
Here is my take on formations. It can be anything experienced with the 6 senses only it is seen very clearly right before a fruition. So it is no help to identifying when you see one except hindsight. I spent 2 years in review and did the fruition thing several times a week...here is how it went...
Description-
I would be sitting in the sauna and get to EQ then I would feel the heat arise and pass away; get more intense then peak and fade more quickly than the build up (This was slow for me, it builds for like 2 - 3 seconds then passes away quicker like 1-2 seconds). at the bottom of the pass away it would hit bottom with a *thump* into a barrier that was solid but had some give to it like packed dirt. Then consciousness would fade slowly to almost gone and then fade back and this would happen again - Heat arises and passes away again, *thump* , fadeout again, on the last one the *thump* would be a breaking through the barrier into cessation, nothing, totally gone. The experience coming back was instant, consciousness was back, moment to notice, strong in breath and the bliss wave would roll over me.
So the formation pre-cessation that was presenting itself was heat. It was slow and methodical and very clear. If this is not it I totally missed what a formation is....many times emoticon

for additional threads Google ---> site:www.dharmaoverground.org formations
Hope this helps,
~D

Jen Pearly:
And feel free to comment on Daniel's use of the term formations in MCTB2.
Did I miss something??? Where might I read MBCT2?
Thanks,
~D

RE: From the MCTB2 Editor: Please Describe Your High-EQ "Formations"
Answer
8/24/14 6:01 PM as a reply to Dream Walker.
Hey, DW, I meant Daniel's possible retention of "formations" in the future MCTB2. He has started giving me pieces to edit. In my private communications with him regarding the editorial project and my (sychronicity!) recent probable stream entry, he and I discussed this issue of MCTB formations a bit. MCTB2 isn't posted anywhere. Maybe that will happen after a basic cleanup on the sentence level--I don't know, up to Daniel. If Daniel wants to put it out there for community critique, I will advise him to wait till he and I finish basic editing so that you all are encountering a clean, clarified version.

I'm doing a lot of work on it right now, though, and do need some quiet time and space, without a lot of commentary surrounding it, at this first-pass stage. One main consideration is version control, too, so it is not a good idea to have several simultaneous versions going on that later need to be reconciled. That is a disaster I encounter more times than I like to remember in my day job. This said, I will be throwing questions out here as I make my first pass, as I'm doing now--so long as Daniel is okay with my doing so. Daniel still has some big decisions to finalize. I'm not sure how he wants to go about making those decisions, with how much commentary invited and from whom. I guess we'll find out.

I think Daniel said he mainly expanded on what was in MCTB1, especially in the part on concentration. And he's planning to add a bunch of geeky tables and figures.

RE: From the MCTB2 Editor: Please Describe Your High-EQ "Formations"
Answer
8/24/14 6:30 PM as a reply to Dream Walker.
Thanks, DW. Wow--pp. 44 and 45 of that Young document!!! That's it!!! When I have tried to explain to people what I was seeing (mine was chiefly a visual phenomenon), as yours was chiefly heat, I have said that until right before the cessation, the A&Ps were overlapping in time, making my seeing clear beginnings and endings an impossible task. Then, suddenly, they all synced up, as in the Young figures, and I saw them arise and pass as distinct "packets" of experience, beginnings and endings extremely clear. I remembered what people here said about really paying attention to "gone." I did for three or four more of those packets, and then BAM--cessation.

When I was talking to Daniel, he asked me to reproduce the speed/slowness of those three or four moments of distinct passings-away, as if that were diagnostic. Mine were pretty slow. He said that was correct for formations in EQ: they are fairly slow. My experience was as if time itself had warped down to a crawl, so I could see.

Thanks for clarifying that the ability to see these "formations" begin and end so clearly is confined to just before fruitions. That helps a lot, because I'm not sure that is emphasized in MCTB1.

[Edited for typo. Wish we had a spell checker, too.]

Here's my description of "formations" from my recent High EQ:

People tend to say that formations are more about process and are not really "things." I experience them pretty much as things, I think, in the same way that vibrations are on some level perceived as things and not simply process. It makes no sense to me that a process can be directly perceived in a single moment if it is simply the measure of change in X from moment to moment (ie, process). 

So the things I sensed in Equanimity are like three-dimensional Rorschach blots that "bloom" into view (these are visual for me) and then unbloom--sort of go concave and blank or even black. For instance, I often sit on a cushion on my bedroom floor to meditate, There, if I open my eyes at least slightly when I'm about 15 minutes into a sit, the fine vibrational particles will recede from notice while these bigger swirls and even LSD-type "breathings" start up in the carpet. The carpet fibers will look "alive" and moving like seaweed.

If I remain still and keep watching, whole constellations of these start becoming more organized and more 3D and unfold like big blooms of the carpet (or wall, or bedpost, or whatever I gaze on). Until the day of my supposed stream entry, I really could not see the beginnings and endings of these blooms. For one thing, they overlap in space-time with many other blooms at various points in the blooming or dying, and many blooms occur wherever I look.

On the day of stream entry, either my mind sped up, or the formations slowed way, way, down and synchronized, because I could suddenly see an isolated one from beginning to end, like a series of still shots, and then another, and then a another. They became very slow and regular, like a calm heartbeat given in still frames. Right before stream entry, I was paying intense attention to the dying off of each bloom. When I realized that what I was seeing in the moment of die-off wasn't really a true "nothing," that's when reality stopped cold, after three or four more views of these passing away.

Now, during sits in High Equanimity, I also experience "meditative tinnitus" and could hear many layers of sound vibrations of different duration and pitches. These mixed nicely with the sound of tree frogs and cicadas outside at night, which I also tuned into. Quite a symphony! I guess all the layers could be thought of as a 3D aural thing, too, but they didn't blend with the visual phenomena. I never did get any kind of synesthesia--the experience of one sense for another, or all blended so that the senses weren't separate. I have no idea what people may mean by that, unless that it is just that you get so focused on the formation that you forget about which sense organ is involved. That much does make sense to me.


Formations in my experience can be discovered in situations outside of formal meditative practices as are done here.

My first encounter with such phenomena was while in the midst of an intense DMT trip.

The whole of reality was fluxing, time was spiraling into itself, the visual field flashing a livid non-self entity that expressed itself in vortexing, voluptous patterns in space.

I have never experienced a high EQ higher than that one.

While here, I might as well describe what I am currently experiencing:

A distinction is made between the emotive content of the mind, represented in circular fashion, and the orgasmic ultimate potential that is contained within more of a drop like motif. Where the triangular junctures make themselves known, I know not.


Edit. It seems that it is quite a possibility that all that I said here was a lie. I don't know why, but as soon as I post something on this website, I find myself beginning to see things differently.

Jen Pearly:
Wish we had a spell checker, too.
Press the <Source> button on the button area where bold and the rest of the buttons are and then click into the text area and the spell checker will underline in red and words it does not know....annoyingly it doesn't know vipasanna and several other well used words....better than nothing though...note nothing...note nothing.
~D

In my experience of EQ, formations are often interpreted (visually) to be somewhat similar to blocks of glass, often the kind of orange-yellow color lots of people experience in A&P, but more crystalline I guess. Existence then seems like a rapid succession of these blocks, one after another. It's all really quite beautiful, but at that stage, the meditator apparently doesn't care about beauty. You just sit and pay attention because it's the only thing you're doing right now, sort of out of habit, not appreciation for the beauty of it, or any sort of conscious motivation.

In the weeks after SE, I was of the opinion that viññāṇa is saṅkhāra. (I now believe what I had actually seen was simply the link between them: "Saṅkhārapaccayā viññāṇaṃ." I also mistakenly interpreted the word saṅkhāra to mean "put together," when it really means "putting together," i.e. "fabrication" in the sense of "the act or process of fabricating," not "something fabricated.")

RE: From the MCTB2 Editor: Please Describe Your High-EQ "Formations"
Answer
8/26/14 9:11 PM as a reply to Dream Walker.
Awesome! Thanks for the spell-checking tip, DW!

RE: From the MCTB2 Editor: Please Describe Your High-EQ "Formations"
Answer
8/26/14 9:21 PM as a reply to Dauphin Supple Chirp.
I had to run over to Access to Insight to look all that up! emoticon

Someone emailed me recently with the news that her experience of formations is like mine: these blooming nimittas that fold and bloom, fold and bloom. Interesting, huh?

I prefer Thanissaro Bhikku's translation, as 'fabrications'.  It seems to really capture that our experience of reality is created out of action, karma, intentness, or fabrication.  It is profound how much of reality is fabricated.  The work of insight is to unravel all these incredibly habituated patterns of doing that conceal what lies underneath.  

You will notice that Daniel equates the nana of equanimity to the 4th vipassana jhana.  Recall that 4th jhana is the jhana where the factor of equanimity is present.  Thus, the 'point' of this stage of insight is to see how even equanimity is something that we do.  Even a state as pure and as clear as 4th jhana is fabricated.  In this stage of insight we are noticing how the mind 'does' equanimity, and thus how even some small amount of stress is present due to this unecessary level of doing.  When we are able to discern this stress or doing, we can incline towards release from it and cessation occurs.  For the first time, we taste 'not doing'.  

If we are experiencing some sort of visual phenomena, then certainly there is an element of fabrication present.  Being able to discern this is a matter of seeing the mind's involvement in the process.  The visual phenomena itself is not the formation, it is the result of what the mind is 'doing' which is the formation.  Similarly, the EQ of fourth jhana is not nana of EQ.  

  

RE: From the MCTB2 Editor: Please Describe Your High-EQ "Formations"
Answer
9/5/14 12:10 PM as a reply to dat Buddha-field.
dat Buddha-field:

You will notice that Daniel equates the nana of equanimity to the 4th vipassana jhana.  Recall that 4th jhana is the jhana where the factor of equanimity is present.  Thus, the 'point' of this stage of insight is to see how even equanimity is something that we do.  Even a state as pure and as clear as 4th jhana is fabricated.  In this stage of insight we are noticing how the mind 'does' equanimity, and thus how even some small amount of stress is present due to this unecessary level of doing.  When we are able to discern this stress or doing, we can incline towards release from it and cessation occurs.  For the first time, we taste 'not doing'.  


Could inclining towards release lead to jhana of boundless space rather than cessation? Or does the movement to this take on a different 'flavor' of inclination than for release? (I can't see why this wouldn't be the case)

dat Buddha-field:

If we are experiencing some sort of visual phenomena, then certainly there is an element of fabrication present.  Being able to discern this is a matter of seeing the mind's involvement in the process.  The visual phenomena itself is not the formation, it is the result of what the mind is 'doing' which is the formation.  Similarly, the EQ of fourth jhana is not nana of EQ.     


How about the EQ that arises from Brahmavihara practice? Similar in fabrication to EQ of fourth jhana?

Your point above is a good one. The nana of any stage is not the same as the felt sense (or fabrication) of being in that stage.

RE: From the MCTB2 Editor: Please Describe Your High-EQ "Formations"
Answer
9/5/14 1:06 PM as a reply to Small Steps.
Small Steps:

Could inclining towards release lead to jhana of boundless space rather than cessation? Or does the movement to this take on a different 'flavor' of inclination than for release? (I can't see why this wouldn't be the case)
I think if we're clear about what we're doing then there isn't really risk of accidental 5th jhana.  At that level of absorption, even very subtle movements of mind feel huge and thus accidents don't really happen.

But there is a fundamental difference in the two activities.  In moving from 4th to 5th jhana, we are content with our experience of EQ.  We let go of EQ and allow absorption into the dimension of boundless space to take its place.  Yet we are too fully abosrbed into our object (whether EQ or boundless space) to engage investigation into fabrications.  

Let's say alternatively, we take Pa Auk Sayadaw's advice and rise up to 4th jhana for the purpose of doing insight practice.  First, we must pull ourselves out of the absorption just enough to create space for investigation, but not too much such that we lose the state.  With this space we begin to investigate the equanimity itself, eventually see how it is being fabricated, look for the stress present in the fabrication, and incline towards release.    
How about the EQ that arises from Brahmavihara practice? Similar in fabrication to EQ of fourth jhana?
There will definitely be some similarities, but as to how much is for you to investigate.  I think there are too many factors at play, and thus you might find that they have slightly different flavors.  Also, if you are focusing on EQ prior to even entering 1st jhana then it is certainly a much grosser fabrication.

That sounds like it could be a very cool, albiet very challenging practice.  Can you cultivate EQ as your nimitta and then pull back just enough to do insight on it as you bring it up through the jhanas?  Wow, now there's something to try!!   

RE: From the MCTB2 Editor: Please Describe Your High-EQ "Formations"
Answer
9/5/14 2:05 PM as a reply to dat Buddha-field.
dat Buddha-field:
I prefer Thanissaro Bhikku's translation, as 'fabrications'.  It seems to really capture that our experience of reality is created out of action, karma, intentness, or fabrication.  It is profound how much of reality is fabricated.  The work of insight is to unravel all these incredibly habituated patterns of doing that conceal what lies underneath.  

You will notice that Daniel equates the nana of equanimity to the 4th vipassana jhana.  Recall that 4th jhana is the jhana where the factor of equanimity is present.  Thus, the 'point' of this stage of insight is to see how even equanimity is something that we do.  Even a state as pure and as clear as 4th jhana is fabricated.  In this stage of insight we are noticing how the mind 'does' equanimity, and thus how even some small amount of stress is present due to this unecessary level of doing.  When we are able to discern this stress or doing, we can incline towards release from it and cessation occurs.  For the first time, we taste 'not doing'.  

If we are experiencing some sort of visual phenomena, then certainly there is an element of fabrication present.  Being able to discern this is a matter of seeing the mind's involvement in the process.  The visual phenomena itself is not the formation, it is the result of what the mind is 'doing' which is the formation.  Similarly, the EQ of fourth jhana is not nana of EQ.  

dat Buddha-field,
The topic is "Please Describe Your High-EQ "Formations"
If you have been in High EQ and expereinced formations would you please be so kind as to describe the expereince phenomenologically.
Though you are very well read, direct expereince not an intelectual understanding of a subject is what is being asked here.
Thanks,
D

RE: From the MCTB2 Editor: Please Describe Your High-EQ "Formations"
Answer
9/5/14 6:05 PM as a reply to Dream Walker.
Dream Walker:

dat Buddha-field,
The topic is "Please Describe Your High-EQ "Formations"
If you have been in High EQ and expereinced formations would you please be so kind as to describe the expereince phenomenologically.
Though you are very well read, direct expereince not an intelectual understanding of a subject is what is being asked here.
Thanks,
D

Hi D, 

I responded in the way I did due the fact that it seemed like people were describing how they experience equanimity itself.  My point was that one's experience of EQ is not an experience of the formations surrounding consciousness of equanimity.

So to directly answer your question, I experience formations as stress.  The stress around equanimity is extremeley subtle!    

Here is what I hope is a relatable example...

 Imagine being in a really bad mood, everything in the world is pissing you off today.  Someone sneezes on you and you just lose it, telling them what a gross horrible jerk they are.  Normally, you be a little grossed out, maybe even a bit ticked, but not today, you straight up lose it.  

So what was different today?  What is this thing we call a 'bad mood'?  A bad mood is gross formations on the level of mind and body.  Being sneezed on was not a different physical event than on a day when it would have just grossed you out, right?  But something about you was different.  You were holding tension and stress in your body that caused you to perceive things more aggressively.  Events in your day were more colored by your bad mood, independent of the events themselves.  The tension that colors your experience of having a bad mood are the formations.  The formations were not 'the being sneezed on', nor were they even the anger.  They were what led you to react with anger.  AKA Your Karma, your intent, your volitional formations.  

Later that oh-so-shitty day, you sit down to meditate.  At first your mind is still in a tizzy about what a shitty day it was, but all of a sudden something relaxes.  Your mind slows down and even your body feels lighter.  Your shitty day seems to matter less all of a sudden and you're no longer in a bad mood.  What just happened?  You released from those formations that were coloring your day.  You let go of the stress you were holding in your bodymind.   This is what the Buddha means when he says to 'calm bodily fabrications'.  Let go of the stress you are holding.  

The point is that this still occurs all the way up through experiences as pure as equanimity, and THAT is what we are trying to discern.  Am I making sense?  Do you see why it's a weird question to ask how you experience formations?  Formations are always experienced as stress in the mind, no matter how subtle.  Obviously there is a lot of nuance, flavor, and difference to how they occur... but it's like asking 'how do you experience the nature of your bad mood?'  You're pissed!  That's how.  

RE: From the MCTB2 Editor: Please Describe Your High-EQ "Formations"
Answer
9/5/14 7:32 PM as a reply to dat Buddha-field.
dat Buddha-Field,

As on the other thread where we went 'round, you seem to be locating formation/fabrication before and outside of sensate experience. In other words, you seem to be saying that all this action (formation, dicernment, release) is a matter of a priori intention, and the actual insight stage is just a separate object of this outsider manipulation perspective.

With respect, this seems to be, as DreamWalker suggested, an intellectualization--experience twice removed. Thanisarro, as well as Daniel, makes clear that "release" happens automatically, not by fiat of will power, once the practitioner penetrates (discerns) the phenomena as phenomena.

When I was in High EQ, for example, I was trying at one point to search for a "self." This search was exhausting and fruitless, but the point is that, as soon as I turned my concentration on something "over there" as my object, I suddenly knew a sense of self! X X on here gave me the hint that this was exactly right, that there is something profound and earth-shattering about the fact that object and subject create each other. If you persist in believing in radical subjectivism, then you are missing formation.

As for Daniel's "equating" fourth jhana and the nana of Equanimity, that statement is not accurate. He draws a parallel, but that differs from equating them. Your follow-on statement is a strange distortion of what Daniel says. Daniel talks a lot about higher awakening being agency-less, centerless, and so on. You are talking about the agent and the agent's stubborn moods as some kind of prime mover. This sounds like a misunderstanding.

High EQ and formations are more like subsumptions or envelopments of yourself rather than something "you" manipulate from an outside perspective. You seem to have things somehow backward.

Jenny