Hi,
In some other thread, Daniel described what the vipassana nanas are:
Further, notice how you add a slightly paranoid (Mara-deceiver, these are designed to trick you) take on the stages of insight, whereas the stages of insight are basically a general tour of various modes of reality presenting itself. No mode is inherently a problem if perceived clearly, [..]
I've recently come back from another retreat in the Ajahn Tong tradition. (Derivation from Mahasi.)
The teachers gave talks about what the vipassana nanas are. Their take on them reminded me of the above quote and I noticed that this is not how the vipassana nanas are typically viewed in this community.
But I guess it's a valuable take on them, so here's a bit more elaboration on this view:
The vipassana nanas are different states of mind. If we go on retreat, we won't find anything we didn't already know before. It's just seen in more detail, and the 3Cs of experience become clear(er).
In normal life, the mind just jumps around from one nana to the next, often dependent on the content of one's life. This happens regardless of whether you ever meditated, or not.
Here are a few examples I remember of
how the vipassana nanas correspond to daily life:
Dissolution: Go somewhere with the intention of doing something. Arrive there, having forgotten what you were up to => things end.
Disgust: See how things aren't that nice. Turn away from them => one way of how depression works.
Desire for Deliverance: The condition of a student who has only one semester more to go, but just can't finish it, and ends up doing other things than studying => looking for a way to somehow get out of here.
Reobservation: you have already finished an exam, but there's time left. so you go and look over it again, and again, and again...
Also, an explanation for
how/why Ajahn Tong tradition was created:In Burma (e.g. the original Mahasi tradition), you start to meditate, and you are just in some nana from real life. Then it's possible that you will stay in this nana for maybe 3 months. Eventually, you will 'progress' through the different nanas, but this can take arbitrarily much time. That means, if you are a monk, it can take a really long time to see the full progress of insight with all 16 nanas. How, then, is a layman supposed to do this?
=> From this observation, the idea for the ajahn tong technique is formed:
Do a basic course of 15 (or 21, or 28) days, in which beginners experience a different nana every 1 or 2 days. At the end of the course, they are in equanimity. Now give them 2-3 days with hardly sleep and changed schedule to
build up concentration intensify the meditation even more. This enhances the probability of fruition happening.
Subsequent courses have 10 days. In the first seven days, experience nanas 4-10. In the last 3, stay in equanimity.
=>Advantages of this approach:
Frequent change of nanas makes you realize how "unstable" the mind really is. On a 10-day-retreat, every day is very different, so you don't get bored/unmotivated/stuck that easily. An early glimpse of ultimate reality makes it easier to really get started.
Remark: This seems to mean that it would be possible to traverse 4 cycles of the progress of insight in just 15+3*10 = 45 days = 7 weeks. But that's obviously not the same as doing 4 cycles which take 50 weeks of practice. In short: On the whole this approach doesn't guarantee reaching awakening in a shorter time at all.
My remark: I'm not sure how they do the scripting thing, although I've seen it work 5 times so far. Maybe it's the discussion of the past experience with the teacher, or the regular slight changing of the technique. Or something else I've overlooked.
My conclusion:
On this board, the vipassana nanas are often talked of as if they were levels of a video game

Maybe, that's because in MCTB Daniel decided to call them "stages of insight". There are many posts like "Oh no, here's A&P stuff, soon I have to do dark night, this sucks so much and really frightens me..." or "I've been in equanimity, but then I fell back to reobservation, oh no, this sucks even more..."
But: If the knowledges of suffering (nanas 5-10) are just a (more intense) experience of what's happening all the time anyway, then it's quite ridiculous to view them as ascending levels or call them "dark night of the soul" every time they appear.
The term "dark night" may be appropriate if you get stuck in these stages after an unintentional A&P experience w/o knowing anything about any nanas at all.
It might also be appropriate if you get stuck in them on retreat really long and experience them in ever more intensive ways, without ever experiencing equanimity. <-
This is a problem which the Ajahn Tong approach seems to do away with. The possibility of scripting nanas seems to be completely unknown in this community which is why hereby I'm addressing it.
Any comments on those thoughts? I realize that some/most of this can be found in MCTB, but somehow it seems to be overlooked quite often.