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RE: From the MCTB2 Editor: Please Describe Your High-EQ "Formations"

RE: From the MCTB2 Editor: Please Describe Your High-EQ "Formations"
Answer
9/5/14 7:53 PM as a reply to dat Buddha-field.
dat Buddha-Field:
Thus, the 'point' of this stage of insight [Knowledge of Equanimity Concerning Formations] is to see how even equanimity is something that we do.  Even a state as pure and as clear as 4th jhana is fabricated.  In this stage of insight we are noticing how the mind 'does' equanimity, and thus how even some small amount of stress is present due to this unecessary level of doing.  When we are able to discern this stress or doing, we can incline towards release from it and cessation occurs.  For the first time, we taste 'not doing'. 

Yes, fourth-jhana factors are something we fabricate, and "dropping" certain factors, which is also something we do, opens us to the next higher jhana. However, the insight nana Equanimity (as with all the insight stages) is not an object of distancing, outside perspective, and objectification. You seem to be confusing states with stages, thinking that the latter is a matter of wilfully distancing the former. When you speak of "inclining toward release" (cessation), are you saying that you attain to nondoing by inclining? Isn't inclining doing? Isn't inclining, by your definition, more fabrication? What is so special about this fabrication that it occasions relief from its very self, its very action-orientation?

Jenny

Let's return this thread to its purpose: describing actual experience of formations rather than weaving intellections around them.

Thanks!

This is kind of simplistic, but normal perception is experienced as either "I'm looking out from here" or "experience is coming in from there". High EQ formations are when both of those viewpoints arise seemingly together in a snap-shot of time.

Oddly, internal self-sensations and external object sensations are arising within the same space sensation and with a time sensation --- which really suggests that normal perception is some kind of contructed experience. It also makes you wonder where this sense of "I" could be positioned to have this experience. The sense of "I" feels really unteathered and untrustworthy.

Since you cannot hear me, maybe you will be more inclined to hear Thanissaro Bhikku. 

Here's a short, 9 min clip of him talking about 'Fabricating the Present':  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mTR63OwzEpE 

Please watch this video for the sake of all beings.  It's short.  You might notice that his talk of fabrications isn't about 'visual blooms', but it's about watching what the mind does and calming it.  

To answer one of your questions, yes, we indeed use fabrications to attain release from 'doing' altogether.  This is why the Buddha was a genius.  You replace unskillful 'doing', with skillful 'doing', and eventually you release from 'doing' altogether.  That's the hope anyway.   
In other words, you seem to be saying that all this action (formation, dicernment, release) is a matter of a priori intention, and the actual insight stage is just a separate object of this outsider manipulation perspective.

'A priori' and 'outsider manipulation perspective' is really not a good way to understand what I'm saying.  But I'll do you the favor of not saying another word and will leave your thread if you just assure me you'll watch that Thanissaro Bhikku video... and just the first few minutes of this one too while you're at it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=--3nl2ZaL0Y

 

RE: From the MCTB2 Editor: Please Describe Your High-EQ "Formations"
Answer
9/5/14 11:23 PM as a reply to dat Buddha-field.
dat Buddha-field:
Since you cannot hear me, maybe you will be more inclined to hear Thanissaro Bhikku. 

Here's a short, 9 min clip of him talking about 'Fabricating the Present':  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mTR63OwzEpE 

Please watch this video for the sake of all beings.  It's short.  You might notice that his talk of fabrications isn't about 'visual blooms', but it's about watching what the mind does and calming it.  

To answer one of your questions, yes, we indeed use fabrications to attain release from 'doing' altogether.  This is why the Buddha was a genius.  You replace unskillful 'doing', with skillful 'doing', and eventually you release from 'doing' altogether.  That's the hope anyway.   
In other words, you seem to be saying that all this action (formation, dicernment, release) is a matter of a priori intention, and the actual insight stage is just a separate object of this outsider manipulation perspective.

'A priori' and 'outsider manipulation perspective' is really not a good way to understand what I'm saying.  But I'll do you the favor of not saying another word and will leave your thread if you just assure me you'll watch that Thanissaro Bhikku video... and just the first few minutes of this one too while you're at it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=--3nl2ZaL0Y

 
Hey all, 

Okay, I started the second link for a couple of minutes, Thannissaro Bhikku talks about how the mind requires effort to think and fabricate, etc,
Not really buying it myself, from my view the mind is there, and thinks happen pretty much due to cause and effect, impersonally and on there own, it might seem like there is an effort involved, but, again from my view it is like saying a car engine is using effort to keep running, doesn't make sense or really match up with reality , when reality is cross-examined and investigated.  Kind of seems like more of the dancing around the Ego/me delusion.

I'll check more into the link and the first link posted, because I might be just making a hasty, impulsive post, based on the other numerous hours of Thannissaro's views.  And, it could be he is "baby-Stepping" practicioners towards anatta, You know, investigate what you think is the self, find out it's not, wash , rinse, repeat.

I do apologize for being so blunt lately, guess I am feeling that sense of urgency, (what if I die tomorrow), and am tired of beating around the bush so much, that coupled with not having mastered Right Speech, etc.  Well, it is what it is.

I'll look at first link, interested in fabrications, and formations views.

Psi Phi

RE: From the MCTB2 Editor: Please Describe Your High-EQ "Formations"
Answer
9/5/14 11:57 PM as a reply to Psi Phi.
Okay, so the first link is about training to get to access concentration, being aware of sensations as they arise, and letting them be, and letting them dissolve away without feeding them, if one feeds them they turn into fabrications/formations, then on down the chain we go.

This is same as in informal mindfulness, mindfulness while not on the cushion, being aware of what arises in the mind and not letting the mind cling and stick to sensations as they arise, thus letting the mind reside in "bare attention".

Anyway, that's what I got out of his talk.  I'm not sure how or if this relates to High EQ, and if it is the same or not ?  

Plus, I do still hear a little of the mind creating reality talk, maybe this is just semantics.  To me the mind is aware of waht has already happened, already occurred..  For insatnce, there is an organ called the Eye, then there is lightwaves hitting the Eye, and there is (almost simutaneously the eye consciousness,   Shortened to Eye, Eye Contact, and Eye Consciousness.  What exactly fabricated what?

Same with thoughts, there is Thought Stimuli, Thought contact, and Thought Consciousness.  If there is a fabrication, that supposes a fabricator, there is no fabricator in the equation.   

Though the fabricator delusion comes in later, and that is where dukkha starts.  Then again this may be just semantics in the talking, as we have to use some form of concepts to communicate.

And a big Sorry to Jen if this is off-topic....

Psi Phi

RE: From the MCTB2 Editor: Please Describe Your High-EQ "Formations"
Answer
9/6/14 12:10 AM as a reply to dat Buddha-field.
Okay, here's my view again, and yeah ya didn't ask for it, I was watching the second link video, and to me, it makes more sense to replace the use of his word effort with the word energy, it just makes more sense to me, guess I'm a strange one.

Basically instead of saying "The mind requires effort to think and react."
  
It makes more sense to me to say "The mind requires energy to think and react."

But, I'm no scholar....

RE: From the MCTB2 Editor: Please Describe Your High-EQ "Formations"
Answer
9/6/14 2:38 PM as a reply to Psi Phi.
Okay, so the first link is about training to get to access concentration, being aware of sensations as they arise, and letting them be, and letting them dissolve away without feeding them, if one feeds them they turn into fabrications/formations, then on down the chain we go.

So it is about developing access concentration, but an important instruction in the Anapanasati Sutta is to 'calm bodily fabrications'.  Fabrications don't suddenly arise from nowhere because you feed them, they're there already.  They are what you are letting go of as you relax into jhana.  So instead of saying 'calm bodily fabrications' the Buddha could also have just said relax the body.  But he didn't.  He said 'calm bodily fabrications' which does mean relax, but he's also saying something a lot deeper at the same time.  
Plus, I do still hear a little of the mind creating reality talk, maybe this is just semantics.

It's not semantics.  It's the point!  The video is called 'Fabricating the Present' for a reason.  Though slightly more subtlety would be useful. How about saying the mind fabricates our experience of reality?  
To me the mind is aware of waht has already happened, already occurred..  For insatnce, there is an organ called the Eye, then there is lightwaves hitting the Eye, and there is (almost simutaneously the eye consciousness,   Shortened to Eye, Eye Contact, and Eye Consciousness.  What exactly fabricated what?

If you look at the 12 nidanas, you will see that fabrication comes before consciousness.  This means your experience is already colored before you have objects of consciousness.  This is what I was trying to say in my story about getting sneezed on.  Dukkha is present in your eye consciousness before eye consciousness has an object.  
If there is a fabrication, that supposes a fabricator, there is no fabricator in the equation.   

It doesn't.  Taking fabrication as self, along with any of the other five aggregates is the thing we do out of ignorance.  Why is the concept of fabrication or intention a concept you feel the need to attach a self to?  

RE: From the MCTB2 Editor: Please Describe Your High-EQ "Formations"
Answer
9/6/14 3:07 PM as a reply to dat Buddha-field.
dat Buddha-field:

It doesn't.  Taking fabrication as self, along with any of the other five aggregates is the thing we do out of ignorance.  Why is the concept of fabrication or intention a concept you feel the need to attach a self to?  

Because, the concept of fabrication arises out of ignorance, ignoring the origination of dukkha, the origination of dukkha being greed, hatred, and delusion, the core root of which is delusion, the delusion of not seeing anicca, dukkha ,and anatta in phenomenon, and when one does not see this, one fabricates concepts, of which the self is also a concept or fabrication.  I do not feel the need to attach the concept of a self to the concept of fabrication, they are both formations/fabrications.  When one uses Vipassana (Insight) one trains to be aware of phenomenon as it is.

So , you seem to be asking a tricky, entrapping ,  or mis-leading question , implying that I feel craving to attach self to fabrications and what-not.  When actually what I was pointing to was that the self concept and the fabrication concept both stem from not seeing the true impersonal nature of phenomenon.  So I was basically refuting the teaching that the mind requires effort to think and fabricate,  for , from my view thinking and fabrication is due to cause and effect of an impersonal nature, and that , from my view:

The mind does not require effort to fabricate, but does require delusion(ignorance) to fabricate, as you have also stated earlier, that fabrications do arise from ignorance.  And to sum up, the self, if taken as a concept that stems from ignorance and delusion, is also just a fabrication.  And if it is just a fabrication, why all the fuss and bother of taking a mere fabrication so seriously, as we mostly do as humanity.  In essence we are the fabricators of our own suffering.  Let go of the fabrications, let go of dukkha.

Who watches the Watchmen?

Psi Phi

RE: From the MCTB2 Editor: Please Describe Your High-EQ "Formations"
Answer
9/6/14 8:53 PM as a reply to Psi Phi.
Hi Psi Phi and dat Buddha-field:

It so happens that I've currently been reading Thanissaro Bhikkhu's The Wings to Awakening, which is one of the most brilliant dharma books I've ever laid eyes on. It is extremely clear, but it is also not an easy read, simply because the Buddha's system is complex, with many layers of subtlety and feedback loops. In fact TB incorporates not only the ancient analogies in this work, which is both a translation of and commentary on core teachings from the Pali Canon, but postmodern analogies with chaos theory, among other things.

Anyway, I'm not only a fan of TB, but a devotee of his meditation methods. His body of work on how to meditate basically is my meditation practice. I do not "note" after the Burmese tradition and never have. Interestingly, TB, in this work I'm currently reading talks about noting practice as one currently popular in the West, and he sees it as a fine practice. He talks about investigating the Three Characteristics, and there are a number of meditation methods, or "themes," for doing so. I happen to follow TB's breath meditation instructions. I also do not treat samatha and insight as completely separate practices; instead, after the manner of TB, in my practice I enter jhana and then pull a bit out and above whatever jhana I enter to "investigate" the three characteristics of its factors, those characteristics being (1) inconstancy/instability, (2) unsatisfactoriness, and (3) insubstantiality (not self).

What I have been trying, so far without success, to convey to dat Buddha-field is that, despite the way jhana and vipassana can be combined in a single sit, and really should be according to the Thai Forest teachers, there remains a difference between states of jhana and stages of insight. This difference exists just as much according to TB as according to Daniel M. Ingram. Your apparent confusion, dat Buddha-field (Zach), is in thinking that each separate stage of insight progess involves a will-to-release, or else one remains "stuck." This is simply not so. When release really does come, it comes automatically. And it comes in a specific stage, at the end of the path: High Equanimity nana.

So, dat Buddha-field, when on your other thread you say that people stay stuck in the Dark Night because they don't  learn its lesson, and you say its lesson is that they should incline toward release right then and there, I say this: No, that is not at all the "lesson" of the Dark Night. The knowledge of suffering is simply discernment of the phenomenology of suffering, its three characteristics. Release is not possible in DN territory. If it were, then it would not be the DN at all, and you would have moved on without learning the knowledge of suffering--which is to say, you would not have moved on at all. 

Psi Phi to dat Buddha-field:
So , you seem to be asking a tricky, entrapping,  or mis-leading question, implying that I feel craving to attach self to fabrications and what-not.  When actually what I was pointing to was that the self concept and the fabrication concept both stem from not seeing the true impersonal nature of phenomenon.  So I was basically refuting the teaching that the mind requires effort to think and fabricate, for, from my view thinking and fabrication is due to cause and effect of an impersonal nature, and that, from my view:

The mind does not require effort to fabricate, but does require delusion(ignorance) to fabricate, as you have also stated earlier, that fabrications do arise from ignorance.  And to sum up, the self, if taken as a concept that stems from ignorance and delusion, is also just a fabrication.  And if it is just a fabrication, why all the fuss and bother of taking a mere fabrication so seriously, as we mostly do as humanity.  In essence we are the fabricators of our own suffering.  Let go of the fabrications, let go of dukkha.

Now this discussion is going to get wild. Psi Phi, yes, fabrications/formations are, as MCTB1 says, "what, from a high dharma point of view, is happening all the time." In other words, where there is dependent co-arising, there is fabrication/formations. What is very subtle and complex about TB's--which is to say, the Buddha's--treatment of all this is that, while dependent co-arising involves the entire cosmos, phenomenology, and all of time, in addition to involving our individual personalities and wills, so to speak, the noble path does consist of Right Fabrication, if you will. So long as we have to participate in fabrication, and we do, we should do so skillfully. And here is a tasty morsel of things to come: Daniel connects insight in this way, in MCTB2, with the Four Bases of the Powers (ie, Magick)--meaning that, as I read him, much like Thanissaro, he addresses the necessity of the individual will (Power) into arriving at release!

Now, problematically, Dat Buddha-field, on the thread he started about how people remain stuck in the Dark Night because they are not inclining to release while there, seems to be mistaking path (stages) for the end of the path (release). When one is in the Dark Night, for example, one is discerning the characteristics of suffering in its many combinations of the aggregates. But "release" absolutely does not occur in the stage of the path known as Dark Night, Knowledges of Suffering, dukka nanas. On this level of path, release from fabrication/formation is not available at each moment; only discernment of the three characteristics of phenomena of that stage is available in the present moment of the stages. 

When discernment of the three characteristics of the sufferings (Fear, Misery, Disgust) is sufficiently thorough, EQ emerges, and when discernment of the three characteristics is discerned even in EQ--thence cessation. Cessation is automatic. It is not fabricated--not by any self or otherwise. It cannot be willed from the place of Equanimity. It certainly cannot be willed from the place of the Dark Night. In fact, it is an oft-repeated truism on this forum that cessation/path/fruition comes during moments in High EQ that one is not even on the lookout for release. It arises from a kind of forgetfulness of all except the formation/fabrication one is currently investigating from within it.

Thanissaro Bhikkhu, from The Wings to Awakening:
Thus, for instance, in the practice of meditation, as with any skill, it is important not to focus desire too strongly on the results one hopes to get , for that would interfere with the minds' ability to to focus on giving rise to the causes leading to those results. If, instead, one focuses desire on putting the causes in proper order in the present moment, desire becomes an indispensable part of the process of mastery.

These qualities [of desire, exertion, effortful/skillful fabrication] are necessary for anyone who pursues a path, but are automatically abandoned on reaching the goal at the path's end. The image of the path [incremental stages of insight] is important here, for it carries important implications. First, the path is not the goal; it is simply the way there, just as the road to the Grand Canyon should not be confused with the Grand Canyon itself. Even though many stretches of the road bear no resemblance to the Grand Canyon, that does not mean that the road does not lead there, just as neither the road to the Grand Canyon nor the act of walking to the Grand Canyon can cause the Grand Canyon to be. The goal at the end of the Buddhist path is unfabricated, so no amount of desire or effort can bring it into being. Nevertheless, the path to the goal is a fabricated process, and in that process desire, effort, intent, and discrimination all have an important role to play, just as the effort of walkng plays a role in arriving at the Grand Canyon.

Here is TB again, and this is pretty heavy-duty stuff; everyone should read this book:
The fluid complexity of dependent co-arising means that it is inherently unstable, and thus stressful and not-self. Although some non-Theravadin Buddhist texts insist that happiness can be found by abandoning one's smaller, separate identity and embracing the interconnected identity of all interdependent things, this teaching cannot be found in the Pali Canon. The instability of conditioned processes means that they can never provide a dependable basis for happiness. The only true basis for happiness is the Unfabricated. The Pali discourses are quite clear on the point that the fabricated and Unfabricated realms are radically separate. In MN 1 the Buddha strongly criticizes a group of monks who tried to develop a theory whereby the fabricated was derived out of the Unfabricated or somehow lay within it. Stress, he says, is inherent in the interdependent nature of conditioned phenomena, while the Unfabricated is totally free from stress. Stress could not possibly be produced by absolute freedom from stress. Because the nature of conditioning is such that causes are in turn influenced by their effects, the Unfabricated could not itself funtion as a cause for anything. The only way the Unfabricated can be experienced is by skillfully using fabricated, condition processes . . . to unravel the network of fabricated, conditioned processes (dependent co-arising) from within.

The entire pattern of dependent co-arising is a map showing how the different aggregates group, disband, and regroup in one another's presence in a variety of configurations, giving rise to stress and to the cosmos at large. . . . One of the the most basic features of the Buddha's teachings is his confirmation that the knowable cosmos, composed of old kamma, is made up of the same factors that make up the personality; and that the interaction of the aggregates, as immediately present to awareness in the here and now, is the same process that underlies the functioning of the knowable cosmos as a whole. As a result, descriptions of dependent co-arising slip easily back and forth between two time scales--events in the present moment and events over the vast cycle of time.

This is where I think dat Buddha-field is coming from, but with the one mistaken notion that release is available before the end of the path; again from TB's text right after the passage quoted just above:
It is important to remember, though, that the Buddha discovered the principle by observing events in the immediate present, which is where the individual meditator will have to discover them as well, Thus the practice takes the same approach as phenomenology: exploring the processes of conditioning from the inside as they are immediately experienced in the present moment. This is why the pattern of dependent co-arising lists factors of consciousness--such as ignorance, attention, and intention--as prior conditions for the experience of the physical world, for if we take as our frame of reference the world as it is directly experienced--rather than a world conceived somehow as separate from our experience of it--we have to see the processes of the mind as prior to the objects they process.
Whew! And thus I have contributed to the hijacking of my own thread!

Jenny

Hi Jen,

Yes, your post I can agree with, and TB, (he is kinda sly) basically, skillfully using the fabrications(since as humans that's all we got) to set up the causes and conditions for the un-fabricated to unfold.  (letting go of fabrications = unfabricated, unfabricated = no dukkha) .  Also as the Buddha put it, we HAVE to use the raft (skillful use of fabrications) to get across the river, but once on the other side, we don't need to carry around the raft, for even the raft (the path) was fabrications.  Paradox.  But, cool.

Sorry to have hijacked your thread, (with you) haha,  But, for me this is all needed for me to understand What High-EQ formations actually are.

I have been looking, it seems that Formations are synomonous with Samskaras, sanskara, fabrications.  And can be Mental Formation, Physical Formations, and/or Verbal Formations.  Or as The High-EQ formations , as maybe a new definition is needed, a new class of formation, being a formation of all six sense bases at once?  If that is true, a High-Eq formation would be akin to : Meditating along, in High EQ, and one "pops" into a 3d (six sense base "scene") like a quick lucid dream, then views it with detached High Equanimity.  Which also could be rightly or wrongly viewed as Past life experiences, OOBE's, Lucid dreams, Unconscious archetypical dreams, Remote viewing, mental formations from the Universal Consciousness, etc.  Or simply labeled as Formations, become aware of, and let go of, thus unravelling and dissipating their grasp upon the individual's mind.

I guess I am having trouble with your question, about High EQ formations, because it is hard to get a definition for High EQ formations, maybe it's big secret or something....  Shhhhhh......

Maybe there are many more layers to the mind that have to be delved into and rescued from ignorance, maybe layers of mind that aren't even aware there is a consciousness, or an external reality beside the mind's internal formations.  Kind of an unconscious and unaware situation of mind.  Where's Carl Jung now??

Anyway thanks for clarifying TB's stuff, maybe I should pull the stick out of my keester now, and learn to be nicer.....

Metta, (to all)

Psi Phi

p.s. (if I can't be nicer I'll probably need to ramp up time breathing my feets)

Hi Jen, 

Nice post, I'm glad to see your understanding of formations/fabrications is quickly evolving.  Thanissaro Bhikku and Pa Auk Sayadaw are two of the teachers who have been extremely influential for me.  I think we're in a better position to hear each other now, so let's just clear up a few last things.  I hope this won't be too painful... 
What I have been trying, so far without success, to convey to dat Buddha-field is that, despite the way jhana and vipassana can be combined in a single sit, and really should be according to the Thai Forest teachers, there remains a difference between states of jhana and stages of insight. This difference exists just as much according to TB as according to Daniel M. Ingram. Your apparent confusion, dat Buddha-field (Zach), is in thinking that each separate stage of insight progess involves a will-to-release, or else one remains "stuck." This is simply not so. When release really does come, it comes automatically. And it comes in a specific stage, at the end of the path: High Equanimity nana.  

Yes there is a difference between states of jhana and stages of insight.  That's why you can just be in 1st or 4th jhana, OR you can go through the stages of insight while being in a soft 4th samatha jhana.   I wasn't saying people get stuck in Dukkha nanas because they don't incline towards release.  I was saying they get stuck because they start identifying with their suffering and not looking at the formations present in it.  By your logic, they could never have got past mind&body if they had never inclined towards release, and that wasn't what I was saying.   The main point was stop identifying with the suffering and look at your mind.  Then we started getting really technical about formations.  

Being technical pre-supposes that we're doing actual mindfulness of dukkhanana fabrications and not just sitting there suffering, or not even meditating at all.  So, if we take that assumption, inclining the mind toward release is helpful.  But it's just a small little subtle thing we do to help look for the stress.  TB says a million times and one look for the stress, look for the stress.  Is that not inclining the mind?  Then you discern it and release occurs.  Was that then automatic, or were you trying in looking for the stress?  It seems semantic at that point.  Well here's Pa Auk Sayadaw on the issue (Knowing & Seeing, Pg. 235).  If you think TB contradicts this, then I would be really interested in seeing a source or quote...

After these insight-knowledges, as you continue to discern the passing-away and vanishing of each formation, with a wish for release from them, you will find that eventually all formations cease. Your mind sees directly, and is fully aware of the unformed Nibbàna as object. 

Jen:
So, dat Buddha-field, when on your other thread you say that people stay stuck in the Dark Night because they don't  learn its lesson, and you say its lesson is that they should incline toward release right then and there, I say this: No, that is not at all the "lesson" of the Dark Night. The knowledge of suffering is simply discernment of the phenomenology of suffering, its three characteristics. Release is not possible in DN territory. If it were, then it would not be the DN at all, and you would have moved on without learning the knowledge of suffering--which is to say, you would not have moved on at all.      

The lesson is to see how your mind fabricates fear, misery, disgust, etc.  You're not going to get this until you get over the notion that the only point of the dark night is to sit there suffering for a while.  That's our impasse.  You're just dead wrong.  Sorry.    

In thinking about this, you might ask yourself why doesn't Thanissaro Bhikku warn everyone about the dark night?  Thanissaro Bhikku teaches discernment around all the usual sutric stuff.  The Burmese insight tradition teaches from the Visuddhimagga.  In the Vissudhimagga they added all this extra stuff.  Concentration practice piled on 1000 different kasina practices, body parts meditation, etc.  Insight practice got all these new exercises in addition to the usual sutric stuff.  They added a bunch of practices for discernment around formations, called the stages of insight.  These contemplations are designed with a very specific purpose in mind, to help "Purify Knowledge & Vision" as the Visuddhimagga states.  Yet these stages of insight don't exist in the Thai Forest tradition.  Why not?  They're not essential.  Yea if you do it right it leads to release, but so does TB's instruction. 

And just to reiterate one last time, people get stuck in the DN because they lose track of insight practice.  Insight practice is not the practice of sitting there wallowing.   

RE: From the MCTB2 Editor: Please Describe Your High-EQ "Formations"
Answer
9/6/14 11:46 PM as a reply to dat Buddha-field.
dat Buddha-field:
Dream Walker:

dat Buddha-field,
The topic is "Please Describe Your High-EQ "Formations"
If you have been in High EQ and expereinced formations would you please be so kind as to describe the expereince phenomenologically.
Though you are very well read, direct expereince not an intelectual understanding of a subject is what is being asked here.
Thanks,
D

Hi D, 
So to directly answer your question, I experience formations as stress.  The stress around equanimity is extremeley subtle!    
Thank you so much for finally answering the question from your direct experience. I find your phenomenological breakdown somewhat lacking.
Perhaps if I bold the next word you could continue your breakdown.
"Please Describe Your High-EQ "Formations"
Thanks for your contributions to the thread. You seem to have so much to share intelectually.
~D

RE: From the MCTB2 Editor: Please Describe Your High-EQ "Formations"
Answer
9/7/14 6:03 PM as a reply to dat Buddha-field.
Okay, hey, everyone. I'm getting a little dizzy from moving back and forth between these two threads. So as DreamWalker has valiantly been trying to do, I hereby return this thread to its original topic: Please describe your experience of your High-EQ "formations."

It is not that the other conversation is somehow an unproductive one necessarily; it is just that this same conversation is going on over in dat Buddha-field's thread already. This current thread is dedicated to discussion around the phenomenology that Daniel Ingram, in MCTB, calls "formations" and brings up as a topic only within the chapter on the insight stage called Knowledge of Equanimity Concerning Formations, specifically where he talks about High EQ, specifically right before one of the Three Doors to cessation presents.

My goal in starting this thread was to gain some advanced practictioners' experiences in their own words so that, to the extent that their experiences seem to match Daniel's, I can query or edit to make Daniel's descriptions as clear as possible (although about such a difficult topic). And to the extent that no one's experience seems to match Daniel's descriptions at all, I can discuss that fact with Daniel, too.

You see, in my view, it wasn't always clear in MCTB when Daniel was describing an experience that was required to be just so to be an attainment, and when he was describing simply his own way of experiencing "formations" or the "Three Doors" or whatever. It is his book, and I'm fine with his apparent view that he simply happens to be very talented at seeing all the fine details of presentations that others at least partially miss, but I think it would help readers if he at least said that much and accounted somehow for all the missed perceptions of quite advanced practitioners. And since he dwells on what he has perceived for so long of a stretch in MCTB1, there is the tacit implication that his perceptions are the way it "really" is. Prepathers will take his description to heart that way. I just want him to unpack all this a bit and explain what's behind his going on so long about the details of those perceptions, especially if not a single other person known to any of us has perceived things similarly.

BTW, glancing ahead a bit in the draft MCTB2, I see what I think is Daniel's new discussion along these lines, saying that he doesn't know why he sees the phenomena so clearly, that is seems to be just a trait of his.

Make sense? Concerning this thread, the goal is to help make MCTB2 as forthcoming and clear as possible.

Love,
Jenny

PS: For those who want to continue to discuss the "lessons" of the Dark Night and the fabrication/formation ontologies, please jump over to dat Buddha-field's original post and thread, where I'm there with bells and whistles, if not Wings, quite on, ha.

Hey everyone:

I guess what is perplexing me with "Please describe your high-eq "formations", is that I thought the goal is be free from the burden of these formations, so I always have practiced to let go and abandon formations if they arose, and kept letting go and abandoning formations earlier and earlier, both within meditation and during daily activities.  What comes into the mind is just dismissed forthright, why give any of it special attention?  So all I can really say is it is much more pleasant to be without mental formations.  To be sure, the mind can make all kinds of pleasant and unpleasant formations but to become involved with the formations is opposite of letting them go.

 I can understand equanimity towards all formations, but I guess I don't get what is a High- EQ Formation?  Can anyone explain this, or is it needed?  Is it not better to abandon them all?

Metta

Psi Phi

RE: From the MCTB2 Editor: Please Describe Your High-EQ "Formations"
Answer
9/7/14 11:07 PM as a reply to Psi Phi.
Psi Phi:


The mind does not require effort to fabricate, but does require delusion(ignorance) to fabricate, as you have also stated earlier, that fabrications do arise from ignorance.  And to sum up, the self, if taken as a concept that stems from ignorance and delusion, is also just a fabrication.  And if it is just a fabrication, why all the fuss and bother of taking a mere fabrication so seriously, as we mostly do as humanity.  In essence we are the fabricators of our own suffering.  Let go of the fabrications, let go of dukkha.

Who watches the Watchmen?

Psi Phi
Seems to me if fabrications always contain unsatisfactoriness/dukkha, then instinct would suggest there is an element of effort/tiringness to them. 
-Eva

RE: From the MCTB2 Editor: Please Describe Your High-EQ "Formations"
Answer
9/8/14 12:00 AM as a reply to Psi Phi.
Psi Phi:
Hey everyone:

I guess what is perplexing me with "Please describe your high-eq "formations", is that I thought the goal is be free from the burden of these formations, so I always have practiced to let go and abandon formations if they arose, and kept letting go and abandoning formations earlier and earlier, both within meditation and during daily activities.  What comes into the mind is just dismissed forthright, why give any of it special attention? 
Well for starters, it's hard to practice abandoning something if you don't know what it is that you are supposed to be abandoning.  Therefore a description of the thing to be abandoned would be helpful.  And I have to say, after reading this thread, I feel only slightly closer to understanding.  But so far, this is what I have gotten out of it, feel free to correct any inaccurate parts.  There was some talk of formations being actions instead of things.  IMO if there is an act of fabricating, then there would also be a thing/experience fabricated.  I still have some confusion as to if the action of fabricating and the outcome of the fabrication are all the same unit known as 'formations.'  And speaking of 'fabrications,' apparently that is a synonym for 'formations,' yes? 

Now for the phenomenology aspect (look see see, here I am getting on topic for once!), I do sometimes see something like the 'blooming nimittas' mentioned when I am in a certain kind of relaxed mood.  Although I have been curious about them and suspected it has something to do with brain activity, I had not considered them visual representations of 'formations.'  They take several seconds to bloom and then pass. I have sometimes seen those while sitting in a room looking at a wall as others walked around, so I know that they really take seconds, not that my perception of time has slowed or anything.  I am a little suspicious about those being formations, but could potentially be convinced otherwise.   

I can also see a kind of visual flickering in my visual field if I think about it for a sec.  That one doesn't take much concentration and is reliable for me to produce.  But those are super fast flickers, milliseconds instead of seconds.  Is each flicker supposed to be a formation?  I think I've asked this before but no one answered.  What, no one wants to go out on a limb?  I can also notice if I concentrate, a sort of graininess to perception.  I can see the gappiness, like if you concentrate on breath, it can feel sort of choppy or gappy, as if you were not actually breathing smoothly but had choppy breath, which I have read is kind of the thing we are talking about, yes?  Those are also really fast paced like milliseconds.  It's about the same flicker rate as preOBE vibrations, although I think with those as my mind travels into inner space (or whatever you want to call it), they seem to slow down but I think there what happens is perception of elapsed time changes, similar to how you can dream an hour's worth of dream and then wake up to to find only 60 seconds of time have passed.  But anyway, so with the pre OBE vibrations, I've noticed that as I journey back towards waking state, the rate of the vibrations speeds and seems to recede from easy perception at the same time, but if you are in the right mood, you can still kind of feel it down in there as a kind of a buzz feeling deep inside even after you wake up.  The flicker of the waking state OBE vibrations and the visual flickers and the gap rate of the breathing, seem a similar rate, so I was thinking those are ways fo seeing the formations, but can't be sure seeing as how no one seems to agree on much!  ;-P
-Eva  

RE: From the MCTB2 Editor: Please Describe Your High-EQ "Formations"
Answer
9/8/14 10:55 AM as a reply to Eva M Nie.
Eva M Nie:
Psi Phi:


The mind does not require effort to fabricate, but does require delusion(ignorance) to fabricate, as you have also stated earlier, that fabrications do arise from ignorance.  And to sum up, the self, if taken as a concept that stems from ignorance and delusion, is also just a fabrication.  And if it is just a fabrication, why all the fuss and bother of taking a mere fabrication so seriously, as we mostly do as humanity.  In essence we are the fabricators of our own suffering.  Let go of the fabrications, let go of dukkha.

Who watches the Watchmen?

Psi Phi
Seems to me if fabrications always contain unsatisfactoriness/dukkha, then instinct would suggest there is an element of effort/tiringness to them. 
-Eva

Hiya, Eva and all, 

Fabricatons and effort:  Merriam Webster, To Fabricate is to invent or create something.  Effort as something produced by work, produced by serious trying.

So I will stand my ground and say this is an incorrect view, perhaps contrary to any other humans who profess otherwise, famous or not.

To further explain, Formations, when observed arise on their own, they are tiring and do require energy to deal with them , and/or to sustain them.

To view Formations as Fabrications that require effort, is to say that Formations arise due to Effort, and this is just not so, not only not so, but mis-leading to see reality as it is.

For example when one meditates, a mental formation will arise, did you "create" the thought through effort, or did the thought arise and then "you" were aware of it.  This is something everyone has to see for themselves.

Many thoughts "pop" into the mind that we do not even remotely ask for, much less intend to create, by effort , to fabricate.  I can't even dare say they were pre-fabricated, since this is all an impersonal process going on before and/or below the threshhold of consciousness.

So to reply to earlier post, upon further review, in my opinion, Fabricate is not synonymous with Formation, and in fact, might very well be mis-leading and detrimental to one's spiritual progress to think in this fashion.  It seems that it will lead one to think they are the owner of their thoughts and thus one might cling to these mental formations, and perhaps even devlop cravings for more and more wilder, lucrative, and bizarre formations, which are simply mental phenomenon.  And as such , it seems, that Mental Formations, in the end are no more that imperfections of insight.  And if mental formations are developed and cultivated will only lead to supporting the ego.  

So yes, there is an element of tiringness to them , but when watching the mind formations seem to arise effortlessly, of their own accord, once they are there , I suppose, then one could maintain the formation which requires effort, striving and energy.  Which sounds more like the sustaining of dukkha as comapred to the cessation of dukkha.

Anyway, thanks for discussing this with me, please don't think I am lecturing, I am just trying to share my experience, and have learned and continue to learn from everyone's posts.

Wishing everyone an awesome day!  Even if we have to fabricate it....

Psi Phi

RE: From the MCTB2 Editor: Please Describe Your High-EQ "Formations"
Answer
9/8/14 11:04 AM as a reply to Eva M Nie.
Hi Eva, 

Yes, are these the types of High-EQ formations looking to be described??  I am about to give up, there really are too many formations to list, each mind moment is a different formation, and each mind has different mind moment, this combined with that there are the six sense base, and millions of combinations and complexiteies for those, there would literally be billions and billions of individual formations.

Perhaps, one can only suspect that a High-EQ formation is a more complex type of formation?(quantum event consciousness)  Or the more simple type, (binary event consciousness).  

I still don't know the definition of High-EQ formations, thus can not describe any, and perhaps, I just don't have them.  Perhaps I am way out of my league here and am better off and more peaceful not trying to figure this one out.

May you have peace, 

Psi Phi

RE: From the MCTB2 Editor: Please Describe Your High-EQ "Formations"
Answer
9/9/14 11:31 PM as a reply to Psi Phi.
No. Sorry it is confusing. It is a difficult topic that even Daniel struggles to convey (although I think you all are going to be really, really happy to read his expanded treatment of this topic when the new book appears). Anyway, no, there is no such thing as formations that happen only in High Equanimity. It is simply that in this stage they often become observable as such. You observe them from within them. Really, formations/fabrications are always what is occurring, always. So you cannot "abandon" them, either, unless you think you can just decide to abandon reality. The only time they stop is during fruition, because that is when all of reality stops. High EQ is just when they become clear as such, but not all people notice them at all. It is okay if you don't. You can "do" Equanimity, or it can do you, anyway.

They aren't just an object "over there." Rather, they involve the space that encompasses any object you observe, plus the observer. So when you observe them, it is as if you are observing objects and observer as objects "over there," which raises the question who or what is still observing even that. They are huge swaths of all-inclusive "reality." So, really, my blooming nimattas are incomplete considerations because a formation involves them, the senses, the space in and outside the blooms, time, and the "me" who is supposedly observing. At least, this is pretty much how Daniel describes them. You experience them as one flowing whole rather than a collection of disparate parts. 

Here is an interesting discussion that says there isn't a good English translation for sankaras