Best guess: none!

With no real certainty I think that many times over the past 30 years I've gotten an awareness of "body and mind" but I doubt I've ever gotten to a stage farther than that. No "cause and effect," no "three characteristics," and definitely no "A&P."
I realize now that some of the experiences that I had suspected may have been A&P were actually unitive states brought on by entering the "body and mind" stage.

Anyway, I'm excited to be where I am at right this minute. For the first time I feel very clear about what I need to do: sit and notice sensations as often and for as long as possible and when not sitting work very hard at staying aware of what I am doing, feeling, thinking as continuously as possible. Read literature and posts on insight practices, and listen to podcasts while working. Ask questions of people I trust. That's it, at least for now.

And, I feel confident that doing this will bear fruit when the time is RIGHT.

Mike

“With no real certainty I think that many times over the past 30 years I've gotten an awareness of ‘body and mind’ but I doubt I’ve ever gotten to a stage farther than that. No ‘cause and effect,’ no ‘three characteristics,’ and definitely no ‘A&P.’ I realize now that some of the experiences that I had suspected may have been A&P were actually unitive states brought on by entering the ‘body and mind’ stage.”

When I read the quote above by Telecaster, I heard a little voice say, “Ooohhhh…”

This might be where I am as well. I do have some questions.

Is it the case, then, that those who do not deliberately practice noting of intention--as in picking up a glass of water per the labeling technique described by Mahasi Sayadaw—will nonetheless hit this Cause and Effect stage? (I'm only now starting to practice in this way.) Is C&E described in other maps as a fairly universal thing? If this is the case, then maybe I have gained a better sense of where I am: body and mind.

One thing I wonder about is the idea of smaller fractal patterns within larger ones. That’s, after all, a fundamental characteristic of fractals, right?

For me, there was a unitive experience years ago that, as I was reading MCTB, sounded so much like Daniel’s description of the A&P. I was walking around for a few days feeling as though I were enlightened. I became zealous and almost evangelical in precisely the way he describes. The experience itself--which involved a kind of hard concentration in which the eyes were open and all sense of the observer vanished for quite some time, accompanied by very strong energetic phenomena, a profound stillness, and so forth--has continued to stand out to me as head and shoulders above all the other meditative moments. Moreover, this was followed by a decline in intensity that seemed reminiscent, in some ways, of the Dark Night. I even drifted to a dharma center, confused, in just the way Daniel describes.

But has there never been any crossing of the A&P at all? Could this have been just an echo of the larger pattern—all happening prior to the meditator attaining cause and effect? A small sine wave within the larger one? Hmmm...

I don't know, but I agree that your experience sounds like A&P.
Mine have been much more subtle and way less dramatic and did not involve any kind of bliss or evangelical feelings - just gentle awarenesses that my mind and body were separate and a conviction that my thoughts weren't real. Which is a pretty good thing to know.
Mike

Thanks, Mike. I'm still grappling with the maps. I do find the designations interesting and helpful. "Mind and Body" seems clear enough to me now. Cause and Effect? Not quite yet, experientially. Maybe an aha! moment will happen one of these days in terms of the dharma diagnosis. We'll see!

I would be careful about asserting that the mind and body are "separate" because people could get the wrong idea from that wording and think that you mean there is an actual split between mind and body--that mind is somehow separate from the body and brain, rather than one with it--i.e. that there is a ghost in the machine. (I've fallen into the trap of trying to imagine or make an abstraction of consciousness. It's a trap!)

I like the way Daniel describes Mind and Body:

There is this sudden shift, and mental phenomena shift out away
from the illusory sense of “the watcher” and are just out there in the
world with the sensations of the other five sense doors. This is an
important insight, as it shows us clearly and directly that we are not
“our” mind or “our” body. It is also a really nice, clear and unitive feeling
state.

What you're saying when you use the word separate is that you're getting that sense of mind and body pulling away from the watcher--you're able to see these phenomena as something other than rigidly-identified-with self, right?
Best regards,
jgroove

I certainly could be using the wrong terminology and have an incorrect insight! (smiley face)
What seems to have happened is through insight I could see how ephemeral and inconsequential my thoughts actually are.

That sounds about right! Wish I could do that all the time!
Talk to you later...