| | So, I recently returned from 50 days on retreat here in India. I'm not sure what to make of all that happened (which, of course, was a lot), and not sure where exactly to go from here. Also, not sure if maybe I might be "stuck" in something I'm not seeing. So, I wanted to just post here and clarify a little. Sorry if this is long, but I would love some guidance, etc, as I feel a little bit vulnerable like a little child after 50 days of no talking.
Having been "diagnosed" on this forum before, it seems that I passed through the Arising and Passing about a year ago (for the second time, perhaps), and was working Dark Night energy up until about last fall. Which would put me in Equanimity.
Reading the stuff on interactivebuddha.com about the Equanimity nana, this is what I can say matches my situation:
"Finally, we really begin to understand and surrender to the truth of things." - Yes. The first few days of my retreat were a complete surrender, deep deep surrender.
"All of the “stuff” that the Dark Night may have brought up may still be going on, but somehow it has lost its ability to cause real trouble." - Totally. it seems to come and go at times, but never troublesome.
"Equanimity is much more about something in the relationship to phenomena than anything specific about the phenomena themselves." - Yes, it's a very calm do-nothing type of relationship for me.
"Equanimity can have sort of a rough start, strangely enough, as well as some mildly painful and irritating sensations" - Yes, except not just "mildly"... some very very painful and irritating sensations, and still continuing months later. But, like above, not very troublesome.
"it is very tempting to solidify it into the fourth samatha jhana" - I have no idea what the fourth jhana is, but sometimes I have just sat around for hours feeling my breath and being totally content while doing nothing in particular. Not sure if that's a "solidification" or not.
"not investigating the qualities of this stage, such as peace, ease, and a panoramic perspective, causes failure to progress and makes falling back to Re-observation more likely." - I don't understand the "falling back" principle. I don't really get what that means. But, I think there was a moment prior to this retreat when I realized I wasn't investigating grattitude... and that's when I realized that there was a whole shitload of stuff like peace, ease, etc that I wasn't investigating. I think I'm still learning to investigate this stuff.
"the true nature of even more complex, inclusive, subtle and fundamental things, like space, awareness, investigation, wonder, expectation, anticipation, peace, ease, questioning, and those sorts of things in ways that cut through the center and include the whole background and foreground as well." - Can't say that I'm really experiencing this type of stuf, or maybe only at a beginner level. I catch these things arising in my experience but am not piercing through to their true nature, just sorta vaguely noticing them.
"This early stage can feel very familiar and “normal,”" - I spent a lot of time on retreat feeling very normal.
"Sometimes the early part of stage 11 can produce a real sense of freedom in the conventional sense, freedom from cares, worries, and even responsibilities and social conventions. One may sometimes feel that one is simply beyond everything, and it must be admitted that this is a wonderful feeling. It tends to fade quickly enough on its own, but it might be possible to get caught by it if one stopped practicing entirely." - I think I went through this mostly by now. It did kind of fade on it's own.
"their spiritual path being much less of a Big Holy Deal." - Yes, somewhat... but also that's why I'm posting because I'm a bit concerned that if it's such a not big deal, then why am I practicing? And, a sense of pointlessness sometimes arises around this, I've been investigating "pointlessness," but it's still a little vague what that is.
"the meditator is able to sit for longer and longer periods of time" - I think this started to happen around November of last year, but then it seemed like I was hurting myself because I was sitting so much, so I haven't been sitting long periods anymore. (See the note about pain, above)
"and begins to clearly perceive the Three Characteristics with spaciousness and breadth." - Yeah, and my mind seems more inclined to percieve the whole of experience than to dwell on an object of meditation for too long.
"There are rarely if ever the spontaneous physical motions and odd breathing patterns that come with that earlier stage. " - I didn't have much spontaneous stuff in either, but still I get some of this stuff now.
"there is often a single double-dip unknowing event, with one being halfway down the breath and the other at the end of that breath, very soon after the shift from Re-observation to Equanimity." - No concious experience of any kind of "unknowing events" as far as I can tell.
"fear of madness and death is not uncommon at this stage, but usually does not cause too much trouble" - Yeah, I've had some of that.
"A related and common feeling in the early part of this stage is the general sense that something big is about to happen, though this feeling is also common before the A&P Event. These feelings are worthy of sensate investigation in a wide and inclusive way." - I had a number of moments like this, one in which it was almost like I heard a voice calling from "the other side" saying out to me "Trust... Trust..." I must admit that I didn't investigate this as a sensate experience, because it seemed pretty cool at the time.
"Reality can now be perceived with great breadth, precision, and clarity, and soon with no special effort." - Long stretches of no-effort on this most recent retreat. It was like I could just lie there in the meditation hall and everything would just arise, be percieved clearly, and the pass with no effort. Even when things weren't percieved clearly - the lack of clarity was quickly percieved without effort.
"Vibrations may become predominant, and reality may become nothing but vibrations." - Can't say that this really fits. Things occur as just experience arising and passing - if that's what's meant by "vibrations"?
"Vibrating formless realms may even arise, with no discernable image of the body being present at all." - A couple of very short dips into formless realms, most markedly characterized by a real lack of typical reference points with which to "know myself". Like, just being and experience arising, but no real form of the experience.
"Phenomena may even begin to lose the sense that they are of a particular sense door, and mental and physical phenomena may appear nearly indistinguishably as just vibrations of suchness, sometimes referred to as “formations.”'" - Not much of this, except what I said above about a couple short formless experiences.
"Until mental and physical sensations fully synchronize on “that side,” there can be a bit of a “tri-ality,” in which there is the sense of the observer “on this side,” and nearly the whole of body and mind as two fluxing entities “over there.”" - Yeah... he, he... that's weird shit.
"Just keep investigating in a natural and matter-of-fact way. Let this profound dance unfold. If you have gotten to this point, you are extraordinarily close and need to do very little but relax and be gently curious about your experience." - ** This is where I really had a question. Mostly, this is what I was doing for 50 days,
just relaxing with some curiousity and a lot of loving the truth while experience unfolded. But, it did seem like it was bordering on not-practicing, and since I did it for 50 days without any "fruition" (as far as I can tell), I'm wondering if perhaps more effort is needed, although I'm not sure I could've even put in more effort, since I was in such a deep state of surrender.
"One of the primary ways that the illusion of duality is maintained is that the mind partially “blinks out” for a part of each formation," - Just starting to kind of notice this at times. It seems the "blinking" is related to the idea that "I am this experience," or "I am in this experience" or "these are my thoughts." like, without the blink, there can't be this false identification
So, OVERALL... It seems I'm in Equanimity, and perhaps I just need to keep investigating the things I'm leaving out. It does seem hard to go back into "normal life" from here, however, as it seems like if I'm close to something (ie. stream entry), then I don't want to get off the cushion. Also, normal life isn't making a whole lot of sense right now because nothing seems super important like it would have a while back. Also, it seems like 50 days on retreat and not progressing past equanimity would be "slow" by DhO standards. But, for me, somehow it seems appropriate, lots of transformation seems to be occurring, and I don't feel like I'm in a hurry to get anywhere. I also feel some preliminary hints of "maybe it's time to move on," like Equanimity is just now starting to get a little boring, and I'm just now starting to see that it's just another passing phenomenon, nothing to get attached to. But, these moments seem to come on their own, and they don't seem to predominant yet. I imagine that this disillusionment with equanimity would be the impetus to move on to fruition, when the time is right. Or, is this just me rationalizing why I'm stuck here?
Of course, on the other hand, I still think it's possible that I'm way off in my mapping, and actually maybe I'm fully an arahat, or maybe I'm as ignorant as a brick? I don't really know some times.
Help, guidance, encouragement is appreciated.
Lots of love,
Daniel |