| | For sure, that is quite a reasonable request. Chiefly, what I did was try to follow Daniels advice in MCTB very precisely and diligently. (I am extremely grateful to Daniel for MTCB, it was an invaluable resource.) Over the past few months, I spent the majority of my time in daily life, no matter what I was doing, engaged some form of insight practice; either noting, or noticing the flickering of physical sensations. I approached this practice with the attitude, and knowledge that I did not know the truth, and could only know it through attention to physical sensations.
Formal meditation wise, I used shamatha and vipassana meditation in conjunction with each other. For the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd paths, my meditation consisted, for the most part, of initially counting breaths (counting ten breaths 3 times) until I had developed some stability of mind (which could probably be called access concentration) and then switching to noticing the flickering of physical sensations. If my mind was relaxed and alert I would focus on flickering of sensations all over the body and just let them happen without specifically focusing on any one area. If my mind was more tense, or tired and paying attention and letting sensation be was a struggle, I would focus on a specific area of the body with noticeable sensations, generally the bridge of the nose, or my arms... I did the noticing practice from MCTB (of trying to perceive to parts of the body at once, and noticing awareness switching back and forth between them) a good amount during meditation in order to get y mind up to speed with noticing, whereupon I would switch to broad body sensation noticing. I really didn't try to do one technique in particular during an insight meditation session, but just switched it up depending on what seemed to be working.
After 3rd path, I was able to access the shamatha jhanas from 1 to 8 pretty quickly, as well as the two additional pureland jhanas (9 and 10). After getting comfortable with working up through the shamatha jhanas, my mediation generally consisted of rising up through the jhanas from 1 to 10, falling back down to 7, and then from there noticing the flickering of sensations (or beginning the process of insight...).
When I reached 4th path, it felt mind blowing, and at the same time very ordinary, or very natural, like I wanted to say "what the fuck!!?!, but at the same time there was really no need at all to freak out about it. I could suddenly see very cleary that all thoughts of I were just thoughts, and I could see the space in between these thoughts. The main thing which was apparent to me was the vast mystery of life, just this massive unknowable, ungraspable aspect which pervades everything. The best I can describe it is a vast incomprehensible field in which everything is.
Since the initial experience of it, it seems I have either become more accustomed to it, or the experience has grown more subtle. At a time like this when I really turn my mind toward perceiving it, and recollecting my initial impressions, the feeling is strongly there. In daily life, the feeling is there, but subtle. The more I focus on it the more dominant it becomes. I have found it is relatively easy to be distracted from this perspective however, and to fall into grasping at experience and thoughts. As well, the patterns in which I have acted for the past 20 years of my life are still dominant. The way I interact with others, the way I treat myself, basically my collection of attitudes on life, are still going strong. This is what bothers me about my experience, and this is what I would like advice on how to work with. |