Technique towards 3rd path: Releasing Specific Identifications Practice

During a two month retreat I sat last year at the beautiful The Hermitage meditation centre at lake Atitlan in Guatemala (http://thehermitageretreats.com/), I stumbled upon an interesting new technique to release specific identifications (identifying with the looker, the hearer, etc).

It seems to have worked for me, but I'm still not sure whether it is in fact reproducible or whether it's just N=1, or even whether I maybe just scripted myself into an interesting experience.

A bit of background: I started the retreat (probably) somewhere at 2.5 Path. I got streamentry and second path a few years before this retreat, and since then had gone through a bunch more Progress of Insight (PoI) cycles, but without any consecutive review phases, or clear baseline shifts. During the retreat I spent the first month working my way patiently up another PoI cycle, resulting after exactly a month  in an intense series of cessations. Then immediately I started with review cycles that became pretty fast. (starting at about 25 minutes a cycle, later down to about five minutes, and at some point with the new practice outlined below it went down to about 10 seconds)

During the review phase I initially toyed around with the practices in Clarifying the Natural State, really focusing on the visual aspects of self-knowing awareness, when at some point my vision opened up (became panoramic, clear, relaxed, no real center, etc) after going through a PoI cycle during walking meditation.

Then, half-remembering DreamWalker's model (https://www.dharmaoverground.org/discussion/-/message_boards/message/5800908) of opening the senses, I tried whether something similar would work with the other senses. And it did! So then I went a bit crazy, and tried with all possible identifications that I could think of. (the list became a bit long as you can see below)

Again, not sure this would work for anyone else, or whether it may just be related to being in a review phase when first trying, or whether you need to be at least 1st/2nd/whatever path, or maybe I just scripted myself into all this fun.
In any case it seems to have done something useful for me, so maybe hopefully others can benefit as well.

The practice in a nutshell

The practice basically simply consists of running individual Progress of Insight cycles for specific identifications. Didn't know this was possible, but apparently it is. (at least for me, seemingly)This probably works best when you are in Review like I was, but maybe, probably, hopefully still works otherwise. (I can still do it even after, but Review may be the most productive time to learn the skill)

1.Vision
You could start with a specific identification such as vision. Keep your eyes open (doing it while doing walking practice may be easier as you'll have more to look at). Establish the feeling that YOU are seeing, and now make this sense of "I am Seeing" your meditation object. Repeat "I Am Seeing, I am Seeing" as a mantra, but try to really connect it to the feeling of there being an *I* that does the seeing.

If you do this with enough concentration, you will start going through the progress of insight. You may notice a small smile during M&B, then some contortions during 3C's, a big grin during the A&P, weird convulsions during the DN phases, smile turning into a frown, then quieting down into Equanimity and finally a fruition with a nice afterglow. This may turn your vision more panoramic or vivid, and your sense of the seer may get more projected 'out there' then being behind your eyes.

If you re-start the practice after your fruition, you may notice that you immediately start at the A&P: congratulations, you're now in Vision-specific Review. Have fun with it.

2. Hearing
.From there you can progress to "I am Hearing, I am hearing." Again really connect to the sense of there being a hearer. Hopefully there will be some noise to actually listen to. (I had some pretty noisy birds around my cabin luckily). DN resulted in some weird head shaking.

3. Taste.
Can either find some food to eat, or just taste the taste of your saliva. "I am tasting, I am tasting". The DN turned into my tongue getting all spastic, quite interesting.

4. Smell.
DN mostly just head shaking like hearing.

5. Proprioception.
Close your eyes and move around your arms. Focus on the fact that you know exactly where your hands and arms are in space, even without seeing them with your eyes. (the afterglow from fruition was particularly intense for me for this one)

6. Touch
Touch some surfaces, and focus on the feeling of "I am touching/feeling".

After this you can go crazy, here's a partial list:

7. The Thinker (just think random thoughts and focus on the feeling of "I am thinking"), 8. the Doer (I just moved around and picked up objects), 9. The Looker (the focused, intentional, attention directing form of The Seer), 10. Hey! It's me! (look at yourself in a mirror and focus on the feeling of 'that's me!'. Gets pretty weird. Also fun to see your facial expressions as you go through PoI cycle), 11. The Narrator (narrate your experience as it's happening), 12. The Talker (DN gets very interesting, as your tongue twists similar to The Taster, which makes it hard to keep talking , 13. The Listener (I did it with listening to a dharma talk recording, would be interesting to do it in person with a dharma friend) 14. The Mover. 15. The Walker. 16. The Sitter. 17. The Meditator. 18. The Dancer. 18. The Eater. 19. The Drinker.

I then moved on with different locations/aspects of fundamental identification. As you may release the identification with being inside your head behind, you may for example experience that your center of identification moves towards the heart area. You may have to chase it around a little bit, to get the center to properly dissolve.

20. I am behind the eyes/seeing through the eyes.
21. I am in the heart/chest
22. I am the whole body.
23. I am space
24. I am Awareness
25. I am the Observer/director of attention
26. I am the Knowing
27. I am this outpouring into the present moment.

This should really open things up. (at times it may feel like you're completely done, but then subtle identification can also start creeping back in again).

You can then proceed to undo some identification that may get in the way of your day to day functioning. (a lot of our reactivity comes from identifying with certain roles or self-perceptions. The positive ones result in unnecessary emotional reactions whenever the identifications feel threatened, while the negative ones are probably not even true and just a useless story that you shouldn't believe in so much):

I am good/wise/strong/attractive/likeable/fun/funny/cool/important/free
I am ugly/boring/incapable/bad/weak/inferior/not liked (A&P's of these can get somewhat paradoxical: grinning from ear to ear while repeating "I am boring, I am boring" to yourself)

It's probably also useful to stop identifying so much with your emotions:
I am angry/sad/hurt/happy/afraid/hurt/depressed/impatient/worried/ashamed

How about the eight worldly winds:
I have gained/lost, am respected/disliked/healthy/sick/young/old

Or:
I am <Your Name Goes Here>

How about:I am here. I am now.

You can probably think of more yourself. I had quite a lot of time on my hands being in the second half of a two month review, so it may not be practical to do so many in daily life.

An interesting thing to note is that with all of these I would enter a PoI cycle starting at M&B, and when repeating start at A&P (as in Review).

Another interesting thing I noticed is that the stages of the identification specific PoI will resemble that of the major cycle PoI that lead to your last past shift. I had a bunch more baseline transforming shifts during the retreat, and each time the nature of the specific PoI's would look similar to the major cycle. If the major cycle had quite a violent shaking DN, the minor ones would too. If the major one had super crystal clear stages, the minor ones would too. Had a major cycle where the DN was just some not-entirely-unpleasant vibrations, and then same with the minor cycles. After every major cycle I went through the list of identifications again, and then also the specific PoI's would start at again at M&B and then second time at A&P again.

The Takeaway.
One potential takeaway is that I simply scripted my way into an interesting set of experiences while on retreat.

However, perhaps this technique actually also works for other people, so give it a try and let me know!

In the aftermath of this retreat my Dukkha is indeed way down, although I could also blame that on taking nine months off to travel through latin america, doing lots of plant medicine during that period (Ayahuasca, Iboga, San Pedro, Kambo, drinking tabacco (ugh)), changing careers upong coming back, and now becoming a father. So hard to pinpoint it to this particular practice. I had fun doing it though.

This is very helpful. Thanks! 

If you try it, let me know if it worked!

Ok I've tried a couple variations...

"I am seeing" mantra: A very quick, rough, visceral blasting through the nanas. It was a bit startling at first as I have been practicing only Dzogchen for a few weeks. I hit EQ within a minute or so but there was something about this one that made me dizzy and almost car sick. I tapped out and went into a different practice. I'll have to give it another shot soon.

Just tried the "I am thinking" mantra practice: HOLY COW. Also zoomed through the nanas. Rocky trip through 3C's over A&P...Convulsions through DN's..quickly into EQ...Mind was wandering quite a bit. Lots of energy. Very distinct fast almost square wave vibrations that don't typically happen for me in EQ. Had a very tiny fruition and a small bliss wave. Realized that this was the first time I'd gone from M&B through to a fruition in one sit as opposed to A&P to fruition during a review cycle. As I continued further my short term memory began to fade. The nothingness and or neither perception nor non perception aspect engulfed "I am thinking". There wasn't a thinker or thoughts. Short term memory almost vanished. Moved to "I am hearing" for a while. Left the cushion with a funny lack of "thinker" and a strange momentary relationship to thoughts.

"I" think you're on to something. Thanks for sharing!   

Wow! Cool! So N=2 now

Amazing that it went so fast for you as well. Maybe the speed has something to do with the practice itself then, and not just the fact that I was already in review when I first tried it....

Do you mind explaining what is meant by N=1, N=2? I haven't seen this before, or I may have forgot. Thanks! 

1st path, 2nd path?

Sorry, scientific lingo: N stands for sample size.

So if you only have a single example you have an N=1 study (sometimes seen in medical literature as symptoms of a single patient get described) 

Usually you need a more robust sample size to be able to say whether any measured difference is actually statistically significant. (more like N=100 per treatment group, although lately there's a move towards even bigger sample sizes) 

Given that I only knew that it worked for me, it was a N=1 experiment. Now that it seems to work for you as well, we're at N=2  

Ahh I see.. Thanks!

BTW just gave it another go with I am thinking and then "thinker" and then "feeler" (of emotions) and then back and forth. It's fascinating to see brief flashes of self sense appearing as an object in the broader field of awareness. The sense of self becomes nauseating when magnified with this technique. Just goes to show there's good reason for it to be transcended. 

Really curious what will happen when you try some of the other ones. The visual one is quite striking, the 'I'm behind my eyes' one really shows you what no center feels like, and the tasting one is just plain weird  

So I have given the visual one more practice. It doesn't make me carsick anymore but I still rush through the nanas extremely quickly with a harsh and cutting viscerality. Any of the thinker / see-er / emotions feeler practices bring me to one center-self construct to which I practice deconstructing. The seer and the thinker are very similar. The thinker one is most likely to lead to a fruition or somewhere else (see below). The feeler has more of a broad spacial quality to it.  I haven't had the drive to give the hearing one a chance maybe because I don't seem to have a dualistic rub with that sense. Sounds mostly happen where they happen. But I will try that one too and report! 

I wanted to thank you again for sharing these practices. Using them, I made an important discovery within my own practice. Bear with me, this will be difficult to explain..  

The transition between a review stage and the beginning of the next path has been particularly fascinating to me. As with most areas of POI, it seems to be fairly murky as experiences vary widely. I remember when practice began to peel away from the review stage of 1st path into the early nanas of 2nd, the spike of energy in 1st path review ReOb evolved to become the rush of energy into 2nd path M&B.

A couple times I have been practicing "thinker", slipped into review equanimity, hit a fruition and then ended up in what was similar to the formless jhana territory. Tonight I was working on the see-er one and as usual ripped through the nanas into equanimity very quickly but soon realized that this was not review equanimity. Lately, motivation has been low and I haven't had interest beyond 30-45 minute sits. I found tonight that the lack of motivation was really fear of aversion to push further. These review "fruitions" I have been experiencing I believe to have been evolving into next path A&P's and this wierd not quite "formless jhana" territory is really actually dissolution of next path. That would explain a wild "fear" event a few days ago. Tonight as I pushed beyond the aversion I was undoubtedly entrenched in heavy, expansive, profound, syrupy fucked up dukkhas at 45 minutes into the sit.

Within the workings of this brain, it seems that there is a fork in the road that is equal to 2nd path equanimity review and 3rd (or 5th,9th,12th, whatever) path A&P. One leads to review fruition, the other leads to A&P, but the fork is closing and becoming synonymous with the latter.
        

That's really interesting! While on the retreat I also had a bunch more baseline shifts from review phase into new major PoI cycles, which came quite quickly after each other. I was suspecting that this practice may have had something to do with accelerating the time between major cycles as well.

I don't remember where I read it, but one theory of why most people have to go through multiple cycles between 2nd and 3rd path (hence the '12th path' joke), is that the insight really has to be spread to all different subsystems in order to then shift into a next path. This would go in line with the Culadasa idea that the depth of an insight experience depends on how many mind subsystems were synced up during the insight experience. One motivation for me to try all these different sub-cycles is that I had a thought it could speed up transition to a new path.
 
For example if the the 2nd path insight has permeated some sub-mindsystems but not others, then you have to keep cycling through more 2.x cycles hoping that you hit the appropriate subsystems until all subsystems have been 'upgraded', and then with the next cycle you may hit 3rd path.
 
That was part of the logic of spreading the sub-cycles to every type of identification I could think of.
 
The other reason to practice with at least all the perceptive identifications (seeing, hearing, etc), is that it opens up to practicing with all sensations as one, breaking down the walls between the senses in DreamWalker's model.
 
That should set you up to work on some of the Dzogcheny practices such as 'I am the Knowing',  'I am this outpouring into the present moment', etc...
 
Really curious as to what else you'll find!

Right. The individual senses and subminds seem to evolve at different rates of progress while at the same time influencing one another, pushing and pulling each other along, chipping away at the walls. 

Here's a question: When you are working on one of these self-inquiries, what is your strategy once you hit high EQ pre-fruition? My intuition was to drop the questioning and effort as I would with other practices.. 

For what it's worth, in EQ it can be very helpful to very gently inquire: "who/what is experiencing all of this?". Not looking for a verbal answer, but rather to see what blindspots/resistances are left when we're in a state with almost no blindspots/resistances.

Really good stuff!!

(The way I think of this general type of practice is 1) initially solidifying the sense of identity around a perception or conceptual worldview, and 2) seeing how the solid experience is an experience within the mind, so therefore can't be the self.)

Very cool that you were able to pick up the nana transitions as part of this technique! 

Yeah, was really interesting to see the nana's so in depth, over and over. Especially when they started speeding up.

Depending on the clarity of the major cycles, the DN would just be fuzziness (Fear, Disgust, Misery), a break (Desire for Deliverance), and
then some more noisy fuzziness (Re-Ob), and then EQ and fruition.
 
In other cycles they were super clear anxiety->yuk->bleeh->meh->UGH and then EQ.
 
(also made me realize that Desire for Deliverance is actually like a nice little break during the DN, and really not that bad)

Yeah, it can be a moment of hope in an otherwise bleak domain. Too bad Reobs seems to dash all hope. 

Love it.  What happens if you do "I am I"?