Umberto Trinchero:
Hi Tarin,
I just finished reading it. I like the 'imaginary' section, which I could understand only a little (for example, resolutions sound to me similar to suggestions in PNL). The tricky thing is "the 4th jhana is hella imaginary". I don't know if it relates to the fact that jhanas are fabrications of mind... A yogi just fabricates his own 4th jhana before reaching 1st Path?
I keep this view as related somehow to the fact that at that point even the practice instructions count less, and it is more important to be there, to stay there, and you're really on your own. Or I misinterpret?
In your hints about dealing with the equanimity stage you always (in the threads too) mention to pay attention to the framework/space/awareness itself/silence, and don't mention strictly the recognizance of formations.
Advertising formations is mandatory (I struggle with that right now) or you could miss that phase and hit fruition too?
I ask that because it seems (just reading the threads here and in KFD) that before Stream Entry a lot of things could go unnoticed (lower nanas 1-3, A&P Event, even Fruitions).
Umberto
hi umberto,
i wrote the paragraph containing the sentence from which the phrase you quoted came (the sentence in full reads, 'I have strong reservations saying this sort of stuff because it can be so easily misconstrued, but if you haven't gotten path yet, a fruition is what you're looking for, the entrance to a fruition arises out of the 4th vipassana jhana (equanimity regarding formations), and 4th jhana is hella imaginary.') with reservations about the way it could be construed or misconstrued, and yet i elected to retain it in the writing to serve as a transition to the conclusion in the paragraph following. that paragraph, and the one following, refer to the later parts of equanimity stage where the integration of physical and mental phenomena (as causal occurrences happening on their own) is nearing completion, the sense of which is of being lost in a very quiet daydream or of slowly falling asleep - as such, the quality of fabricating (via exertion) is completely absent. if you've ever been the last one to leave an empty office where, having stayed late into the evening to finish, you now find yourself in the quiet of closing up and shutting off the lights, appreciating the serenity and stillness of the once-familiar environs, you will know what i mean.. leaving the building is a matter of due course, and so there is no push, no hurry, to do so, as the drift through the motions carries a sense of the ordinary, with no extraneous awareness of its extraordinary nature (as there is, from that perspective, neither anything extraordinary nor any awareness extraneous).
regarding practice instructions, doing the practice is what carries forward the sequence of insight-knowledges, which unfold progressively with the shifts through the jhanas, and which progression cannot be fabricated from scratch but only given rise to by proper conditions, which conditions are brought about by the practice. if these conditions are there, then the intent to move through the knowledges (and thus the jhanas) bears the intended fruit (for example, it is due to the proper conditions that are now firmly in place that a stream-enterer is easily able to call up any of the knowledges at will). however, if the conditions are not there, then what will result from the intention to call up, say, 4th vipassana jhana (equanimity regarding formations) will at best be an emulation based on the nearest available approximation from another jhana, which rendition may look and to some extent even feel like the genuine article, but which, as causality continues to unfold, will be revealed as having been otherwise (as it, not having been 4th and not having been caused by what caused 4th, will not produce the effect that 4th produces.. which effect is, for the purposes of insight practice, the very point of reaching 4th). thus, if you want to do this thing properly, it is important to follow practice instructions diligently and scrupulously, building a strong foundation of attention and continuity, developing faculties of sensitivity and concentration that allow you to perceive vibrations and subtlety, discovering different widths of perspective that allow you to perceive the different ways and places in which phenomena occur, and enabling a sufficiently resolute clear intent that allows you to move so far forward into this thing you forget about ever looking back.
regarding formations, i say keep investigating the three characteristics of those things you mention that i mention ('the framework/space/awareness itself/silence') with clear continuity, not missing a single moment, along with investigating the sensations that imply anything and everything else.. and if you're not missing much formations will show up, and if you're really not missing anything fruition will soon happen.
tarin