| | usually formations dont start showing up til equanimity stage, which is where dan ingram starts talking about them in MCTB. however, there's a bit in the visuddhimagga about how desire for deliverance/re-observation/equanimity are part of the same triad, and mahasi says something to support that in 'practical insight meditation', about how (i paraphrase) by the time one is in re-observation, one is experiencing formations. practically speaking, however, i found this much clearer in hindsight, and a hundred times over hindsight as well. it was only after going up into eq and falling back, over and over and over again, that i started to see why buddhaghosa and mahasi point to formations as being the mode of experience in late dark night territory as well. i want to bring this up just to point to a way to bridge what seems to be a big gap or divide between re-obs and eq, when it doesnt have to be one. one way to see this is to see that there's a certain completeness, and inclusiveness, that is already presenting in late dark night, but is just often missed because the meditator is too busy obsessing about something or another or fighting with himself to look. so next time you find yourself in that territory, take a break from the struggle and have a look around. what is your experiential landscape like? and what are you so busy looking for? then, seeing this, does the effort kind of fade? and how, now, is your attention itself moving? does it have a clip rate? are things sort of swelling into existence.. and then what? and whats this curious blink-out thing the mind does anyway?
if you're getting this close that you're starting to see how your 'self-image' isnt dependent on your everyday concepts of who or what you are, then you've got some interesting investigating right in front of you! never mind what a formation is exactly.. its just the way things are experienced when your mind's not blinking as much. |