| | Very interesting descriptions.
That could be it.
The standard criteria apply.
This is straight out of MCTB:
"These are some basic guidelines that may be used when trying to answer the question, “Was that emptiness?”: If there was any sense of an experience, even of nothingness or something that seemed incomprehensible, particularly anything involving the vaguest hint of the passage of time during it, write it off as something other than emptiness. This is an absolute rule. Similarly, if there was any sense of a this observing a that, or a self of any sort that was actually present for whatever happened, write it off as something other than emptiness. If you were there, that wasn’t it. If there was not a complete sense of discontinuity and if it makes any sense to think of time, space, perspective or memory continuing across the gap, write it off immediately as something other than emptiness. On the other hand, if the only way to remember what happed involves remembering just forward to the end of the particular door that presented and then remembering back to when reality reappeared, well, keep reading. If on continued repetition of the unknowing event over days or weeks it fails the above tests, write it off as something other than emptiness. If continued repetition of that particular kind of unknowing event over days or weeks fails to give any clear experiences of the Three Doors or to reveal something very paradoxical and profound about the nature of subject and object, be skeptical. If there was a double-dip into unknowing events with a few profound moments of clarity and altered experience between them, as is characteristic of the A&P Event, with one shift happening half-way down the out-breath and a second shift at the end of that out-breath, write it off immediately as more likely having been that or maybe the early stages of Equanimity. If the event cannot be repeated, write it off. Those who have attained a path will attain more Fruitions naturally, maybe one to many per day, as they basically can't help but cycle. If there is not a rather predictable pattern of stages and perspective shifts that begins to become clear (specifically following the course of the progress of insight listed above in some way, particularly as regards shifts in perceptual thresholds) write it off as something other than emptiness.
This brings me to the Cardinal Rule when trying to sort out what all experiences or attainments actually were: try to repeat it again and again and be honest with yourself."
Can you call up ñanas just by trying? Do you start at the A&P now when you sit and progress up to Dark Night to at least Equanimity when you sit?
Can you suddenly access jhanas with a whole different level of ability? (this one not as diagnostic: some people just can't do this as easily)
Let us know how this holds up over time, if you wish. Nice going, whatever it was. |