End of 8 month sabbatical - Discussion
As some of you know, I started a sabbatical last January. I went to Malaysia for 6 months, came back to the states and then spent some time at the Forest Refuge and IMS. Overall I did about 5 1/2 months of intensive retreats within an 8 month period. During the 6 months in Malaysia I suspect I attained stream entry and during the time at Forest Refuge I suspect I gained another path. Daniel requested that I share my experience at DHO so I am including a section from a recent email to him. I truly hope this can be of benefit to others. 
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When I arrived at Forest Refuge, the momentum of my previous practice and the sheer silence of the place allowed me get concentrated quickly. I told the teacher (Annie Nugent) about spending 4 1/2 months at mahasi centers recently and a suspected but unconfirmed stream entry and she encouraged me to open up my practice and explore a bit. I had felt myself gravitating towards choiceless awareness (vipassana style, not nondual style) so I went with it. Dropping the primary object and the noting removed a lot of overhead and management from my practice seeming to free up more mental resources for bare awareness.
The first few days I noticed a lot of what I had come to suspect as review fruitions. I had experienced these toward the end of my last retreat in Malaysia as well.
After a few days I seemed to be in new A&P territory. It had a lot in common with what I experienced in my first 2 week retreat however it felt like the purification happening was different and more subtle. Seeing vibrations were effortless, seeing impermanence effortless, over the top joy and happiness like my joy and happiness buttons were pushed down too long and too hard, 15-16 hours of practice a day without really pushing myself. After a few days of that, I was in a new Dark Night.
While annoying and irritating, it was fairly tame and manageable. My first retreat dark night lasted about 8 hours and was pretty miserable with most all objects annoying the shit out of me, waves of disorienting vibrations giving me vertigo and making me feel a little sick, and obsessing over the fact that all of my thoughts and ideas (and everyone elses) about the world are bullshit. No place to stand, no place to rest blah blah blah.
This last dark night had some of that plus a deeper look at duality and my compulsive habit to infuse every thought, idea and often sensations/emotions with a sense of good/bad, right/wrong, true/false, better/worse all of which basically boil down to self/other. This habit was particularly annoying because when I would invest a thought for example with a sense of say rightness, I would intuitively sense the incompleteness of that evaluation. But rather than abandon the impulse to immediately judge, the mind would compulsively jump to the other extreme or wrongness which was also incomplete. This was really annoying. It felt like every night I was compulsively putting a tooth under my pillow when I knew there was no tooth fairy and every morning I would be disappointed and feeling stupid for putting the tooth there. These sensations of reaction were noticed as well.
After a few days of dark night, I moved to equanimity. The compulsive duality investment continued but significantly reduced and I stopped being annoyed by it. Previously equanimity had been a sticking place as I generally used overly controlled practice to get there and then had to re-learn how to practice in a more effortless less manipulative way once I got there. This time, the choiceless awareness was already pretty effortless and it seemed to work quite well when I hit equanimity.
After a few days I had a peak experience. There seemed to be a shift to a deeply profound awareness that was also quite simple ordinary and obvious. A stream of thoughts and sensations arose questioning what was happening, however they were seen prior to investing them with a sense of write/wrong, good/bad, self/other. Seeing these thoughts effortlessly without self or other gave them an utterly insubstantial quality with no power to hijack identity or experience. Previously I could penetrate a single thought with some effort to see one of the 3 characteristics, but in this state I naturally penetrated (seemingly) all thoughts and sensations with no effort as they were seen before selfing/othering. What followed was incredibly strong sensations of light, childlike, innocent, happiness, joy and compassion all of which were also utterly insubstantial and those sensations flowed through the body with no impedance.
Over the next few days I started to cycle hard and experience significant instability and upheaval. Sometimes I'd go through a cycle in 15-20 minutes. Also, the phenomena I had previously suspected as review fruitions, came back but were less common and more intense and they clearly marked a transition from equanimity to A&P. They didn't happen every cycle but were quite obvious when they did. At this point the maps became obvious. No longer did I feel like I as trying to force my experience on the map and getting frustrated when it didn't seem to line up. Both path and post path was such an obvious match to the cycles that it pretty much eradicated the previous doubt and skepticism I had. I also had a clear confidence that I had attained a path and it wasn't first path. I had seen something that was not going to be unseen. I had known something that was not going to be unknown. The primary reason I thought it wasn't first path is that the review fruitions were already happening before.
One reason I suspect first path was a bit unclear is that I achieved equanimity on my first 2 week retreat (where the progress of insight was also obvious) and then spent 14 months and quite a few retreats going over the same territory basically wearing it down. By the time I hit stream entry there wasn't much need for a lot of what I'm calling "post path purification". As Bill Hamilton might say, I just needed to get my damn pot to hold the gold coins I kept picking up and dropping. I suspect this is why I couldn't detect a lot of cycling (that and I'm not a particularly good phenomenologist and I don't have naturally good concentration). However when cruising through a path in 9 or 10 days, then the cycling and "post path purification" is quite obvious.
-Lee
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When I arrived at Forest Refuge, the momentum of my previous practice and the sheer silence of the place allowed me get concentrated quickly. I told the teacher (Annie Nugent) about spending 4 1/2 months at mahasi centers recently and a suspected but unconfirmed stream entry and she encouraged me to open up my practice and explore a bit. I had felt myself gravitating towards choiceless awareness (vipassana style, not nondual style) so I went with it. Dropping the primary object and the noting removed a lot of overhead and management from my practice seeming to free up more mental resources for bare awareness.
The first few days I noticed a lot of what I had come to suspect as review fruitions. I had experienced these toward the end of my last retreat in Malaysia as well.
After a few days I seemed to be in new A&P territory. It had a lot in common with what I experienced in my first 2 week retreat however it felt like the purification happening was different and more subtle. Seeing vibrations were effortless, seeing impermanence effortless, over the top joy and happiness like my joy and happiness buttons were pushed down too long and too hard, 15-16 hours of practice a day without really pushing myself. After a few days of that, I was in a new Dark Night.
While annoying and irritating, it was fairly tame and manageable. My first retreat dark night lasted about 8 hours and was pretty miserable with most all objects annoying the shit out of me, waves of disorienting vibrations giving me vertigo and making me feel a little sick, and obsessing over the fact that all of my thoughts and ideas (and everyone elses) about the world are bullshit. No place to stand, no place to rest blah blah blah.
This last dark night had some of that plus a deeper look at duality and my compulsive habit to infuse every thought, idea and often sensations/emotions with a sense of good/bad, right/wrong, true/false, better/worse all of which basically boil down to self/other. This habit was particularly annoying because when I would invest a thought for example with a sense of say rightness, I would intuitively sense the incompleteness of that evaluation. But rather than abandon the impulse to immediately judge, the mind would compulsively jump to the other extreme or wrongness which was also incomplete. This was really annoying. It felt like every night I was compulsively putting a tooth under my pillow when I knew there was no tooth fairy and every morning I would be disappointed and feeling stupid for putting the tooth there. These sensations of reaction were noticed as well.
After a few days of dark night, I moved to equanimity. The compulsive duality investment continued but significantly reduced and I stopped being annoyed by it. Previously equanimity had been a sticking place as I generally used overly controlled practice to get there and then had to re-learn how to practice in a more effortless less manipulative way once I got there. This time, the choiceless awareness was already pretty effortless and it seemed to work quite well when I hit equanimity.
After a few days I had a peak experience. There seemed to be a shift to a deeply profound awareness that was also quite simple ordinary and obvious. A stream of thoughts and sensations arose questioning what was happening, however they were seen prior to investing them with a sense of write/wrong, good/bad, self/other. Seeing these thoughts effortlessly without self or other gave them an utterly insubstantial quality with no power to hijack identity or experience. Previously I could penetrate a single thought with some effort to see one of the 3 characteristics, but in this state I naturally penetrated (seemingly) all thoughts and sensations with no effort as they were seen before selfing/othering. What followed was incredibly strong sensations of light, childlike, innocent, happiness, joy and compassion all of which were also utterly insubstantial and those sensations flowed through the body with no impedance.
Over the next few days I started to cycle hard and experience significant instability and upheaval. Sometimes I'd go through a cycle in 15-20 minutes. Also, the phenomena I had previously suspected as review fruitions, came back but were less common and more intense and they clearly marked a transition from equanimity to A&P. They didn't happen every cycle but were quite obvious when they did. At this point the maps became obvious. No longer did I feel like I as trying to force my experience on the map and getting frustrated when it didn't seem to line up. Both path and post path was such an obvious match to the cycles that it pretty much eradicated the previous doubt and skepticism I had. I also had a clear confidence that I had attained a path and it wasn't first path. I had seen something that was not going to be unseen. I had known something that was not going to be unknown. The primary reason I thought it wasn't first path is that the review fruitions were already happening before.
One reason I suspect first path was a bit unclear is that I achieved equanimity on my first 2 week retreat (where the progress of insight was also obvious) and then spent 14 months and quite a few retreats going over the same territory basically wearing it down. By the time I hit stream entry there wasn't much need for a lot of what I'm calling "post path purification". As Bill Hamilton might say, I just needed to get my damn pot to hold the gold coins I kept picking up and dropping. I suspect this is why I couldn't detect a lot of cycling (that and I'm not a particularly good phenomenologist and I don't have naturally good concentration). However when cruising through a path in 9 or 10 days, then the cycling and "post path purification" is quite obvious.
-Lee
Practice is now as it was then mostly intuitive. After stabilizing on retreat, I eased up and shifted to B grade practice. While I could have attempted to push on, it just didn't feel right. It still doesn't. I practice daily but mostly just review seems to be happening. At this point, I have faith that when I'm ready to push into new territory, the territory will just show up or I'll feel strong motivation to intensify practice. And if necessary, events will line up and give me an opening for a retreat when needed.
One new feature of my approach to practice lately is really trusting the process. It's clear there is some latent evolutionary process that has been activated, and it's far enough along that it knows how to do its thing. I intuitively understand that the more I try and mess with it or push an arbitrary time table on it, it will likely slow things down. What is also interesting (and perhaps sounds kooky) is that this process is not just internal, but that external forces and synchronicity seem to be a part of the internal conspiracy to "wake Lee up". I'm not sure yet whether I'm aligning to the flows of life or becoming delusional but it is quite interesting to say the least
One new feature of my approach to practice lately is really trusting the process. It's clear there is some latent evolutionary process that has been activated, and it's far enough along that it knows how to do its thing. I intuitively understand that the more I try and mess with it or push an arbitrary time table on it, it will likely slow things down. What is also interesting (and perhaps sounds kooky) is that this process is not just internal, but that external forces and synchronicity seem to be a part of the internal conspiracy to "wake Lee up". I'm not sure yet whether I'm aligning to the flows of life or becoming delusional but it is quite interesting to say the least
Lee Glenn Moore:
What is also interesting (and perhaps sounds kooky) is that this process is not just internal, but that external forces and synchronicity seem to be a part of the internal conspiracy to "wake Lee up". I'm not sure yet whether I'm aligning to the flows of life or becoming delusional but it is quite interesting to say the least
That synchronistic effect is not unusual, Lee. I experienced the same effect during an intense time in my practice. I think it has to do more with being more in tune with the present moment and noticing things more than perhaps before. It'll become more intense before it begins to back off, before you're done with it. Enjoy the ride.
Ian And:
That synchronistic effect is not unusual, Lee. I experienced the same effect during an intense time in my practice. I think it has to do more with being more in tune with the present moment and noticing things more than perhaps before. It'll become more intense before it begins to back off, before you're done with it. Enjoy the ride.
That's good to know, I was afraid I was turning into Wayne Dyer or those people from "The Secret"
Lee G Moore:
Ian And:
That synchronistic effect is not unusual, Lee. I experienced the same effect during an intense time in my practice. I think it has to do more with being more in tune with the present moment and noticing things more than perhaps before. It'll become more intense before it begins to back off, before you're done with it. Enjoy the ride.
That's good to know, I was afraid I was turning into Wayne Dyer or those people from "The Secret"
Treat all such experiences with equanimity. They're nothing special (although your recognition of them certainly is; while at the same time being nothing to get hung-up about). Then you'll need never worry about "turning into Wayne Dyer or those people from 'The Secret'."
You are aware, aren't you, that Wayne Dyer (bless his "soul") and those people from "The Secret" are deluded? That is, from the standpoint of what Buddhism teaches; maybe not from the standpoint of what it is that they think they are achieving in the existential worlds. What they achieve in the existential world certainly has a certain reality attached to it (based in desire and craving for becoming). But it doesn't even begin to measure up to the peace, satisfaction, and realization of nibbana.
Lee G Moore:
Ian And:
Treat all such experiences with equanimity. They're nothing special (although your recognition of them certainly is; while at the same time being nothing to get hung-up about).
This attitude and recognition seem to be the predominate experience for me these days. Though I'm still enjoying the post-retreat afterglow. I'm curious to see how much of the shift persists in the coming months.
As long as you are able to maintain a high level of sati (mindfulness), this shouldn't be a problem. It should persist for as long as you are willing to have it.
If you have the ability to enter absorption (especially to the fourth level), this should help you to maintain your sati. I don't know if you've been able to arrive at this realization yet, but the jhanas are mostly useful as a tool to help train and recondition the mind. If one is able to practice them, he will notice that his level of concentration in waking consciousness will increase (at least that is what I have noticed). And this increase in the level of concentration has a direct effect on one's ability to practice mindfulness.
Lee G Moore:
I enjoyed Wayne Dyer's work quite a bit in my pre-buddhist spiritual seeking days. After a fair amount of serious Buddhist practice, I went back to reconnect and found that while he has a good slant on a lot of things, he still seems to have a lot emphasis on getting what you want rather than investigating the nature of the wanting or the nature of the I that is wanting. Many things he teaches seem helpful but don't to get to the core.
I came across the secret after a fair amount of Buddhist practice and my take was that there is probably some effectiveness for getting what you want with the techniques they describe. But in the end it is just getting more shit that is not going satisfy. At least not in the way we think.
Yes, I've read Dyer in the past myself and enjoyed his perspective (hence my "bless his soul" comment). You're on the right track, Lee, as far as your Buddhist practice is concerned. Keep up the good work. (I couldn't have said it better myself.)
- Ian