The last several months, my daily vipassana practice has remained steady in equanimity. When I practice more intensely, I shift into perceptions of formations, when I practice less intensely, such perceptions are relatively brief. For a couple of months, I was fine with that level, as it was a relief from the prior 14 months of A&P/Dark Night cycling.
In recent weeks, I've found a renewed intention to realize fruition on this path (second, I think -- stream entry realization occurred a couple of years ago).
A question arises about how to move beyond equanimity this time through. The first time through, equanimity was a very brief process -- as I first became aware of formations, the aspect of attachment/clinging associated with them was immediately apparent, and almost automatically released as soon as it was perceived. This process proceeded through three or four levels of ever deeper formations/attachment perceptions, and then the nothingness of stream entry.
In recent meditation periods, I've reached what seems like approximately the same kind of formation-perception stage that I flitted through on first path. But the results seem different this time.
From this morning's meditation journal entry: "Quiet start; open awareness, shikantaza style. Then vipassana practice. Soon reached formations arising. Then shifted back and forth between subject/object formation and momentary subjectless seeing, accompanied by a familiar but uncommon eye motion that seems associated with the shifts. In the brief subjectless seeing moments, seeing connected with objects and would re-form subject/object mind structure. Sense of time and most of body-space awareness disappeared for duration. [From external referents, this period apparently lasted about a half hour.] Once the formations mode subsided, a sensation of full-body, very fine vibration arose, kundalini-like, but much much finer-grained, more permeating, and thorough. Then the bell."
When this mode first arose a week or two ago, I wondered if the back-and-forth shifts with the unexpected tiny "blips" were actually fruitions, but I tentatively concluded that they weren't, as none of the unstructured nonduality events I experienced with first path arose following them.
Today, I'm hoping to get some practice ideas for how to work with this -- apparently -- recurring stage of practice.
Questions or recommendations?
