Equanimity without Formal Practice, and Unusual Cycling - Discussion
I recently read MTCB and it inspired me to begin really knuckling down with the meditation practice, which I have dabbled in for about 5 years, alongside Tai Chi and alot of dedicated martial arts practice, and some psychedelic experimentation, through which I attained a very extreme A&P event almost 2 years ago.
My two major questions are contained in the subject to this post. My self diagnosis after reading MTCB is that I reached Equanimity after almost two years in the Dark Night just a few weeks before I read the book, though I had no formal insight meditation practice, mainly just training concentration states and energy work. However, I did write almost every day, purely as a form of self examination, not as a record of my neurotic 'stuff', but in an effort to attain as heightened a perspective as possible and notice the patterns in my own thinking, and process the A&P event. This led to the discovery of an ongoing cycle that I don't see linked to the Theravada progress of insight maps, but as a regular cycling fluctuation in the content and perspective of my own thought over time, which also seems to possess the fractal quality of cycles within cycles.
Equanimity arrived with the realization that the desperate conceptualizing was all aimed at regaining the clarity of the A&P, that that was unhealthy, followed by the uncharacteristic lack of desire to record every insight or concept I had, lack of rushing to work my way out of my daily commitments by trying to become a millionaire, a sudden lapse in a long term chocolate addiction, ability to meditate for long periods of time again, etc...philosophical arguments lost all their importance and I could feel that I had moved my center from the memory of the 'miracle' of two years ago.
So the first question is, do you think the progress of insight has to be a product of 'microscopic' attention? It seems to me that there are obviously enlightened mystics from western traditions that attained that through attention that likely never counted vibrations per second...I'm convinced that Vipassana is probably the most direct route, but also that I have definitely progressed through several stages where my only insight practice was introspective writing, though certainly accompanied by morality, concentration and energy training.
The second question is about the cycles. I started to notice a pattern about 9 months after the A&P, where my ego would 'rise' and seem to dissolve over a period of weeks or months, depending on the cycle, and at the climax I would have the scary experience during meditation or a psychedelic trip (I used to take mushrooms every 6 months) of being torn apart, accompanied by an intense Kundalini rush, that left me completely relaxed and at peace. Then over the next few weeks or months, the ego would seem to 'descend' and solidify, until it would climax by it making itself noticed either to just myself or embarrassingly to others, and I would strengthen my efforts to see past the illusion of a unified self, until my next experience of being torn apart. So I bounce between these poles, of my ego being dissolved by forces that seem outside myself, and then dissolving it from the bottom up myself.
Sorry about the ramble, almost finished. In between these two poles I noticed, that there are 8 major stages, each with accompanying interests, and perspectives. For example, immediately after the experience of being torn apart, I feel perfectly centered for a week or two, then concepts just pour out of me, abstract philosophy, diagrams, accompanied by convincing clairvoyant abilities (most of which are explainable as aspects of heightened synesthesia), then academic interests, reading about the traditions, philosophy, followed by politics, martial arts, division of all kinds, and then unification interests, such as relationships, sex, renewing friendships, what the future of the internet will look like, mandalas, unified networks of all kinds, and then onto imagination, desire to write fiction, and review what I have written, interest in time, and then finally I land on earth, and it is all about finances, career, exercise. I then travel back up through the 8 stages, in about 1/6th the time, in what I have come to call the internal cycle, as each stage relates much more to myself, whereas the descent was more about social implications and epic ideas.
The stages present themselves not only in content but also in the metaphors I use while writing, and in the symbolism in my dreams. It's not a smooth spectrum, entry into the next stage is usually accompanied by a vivid dream featuring all the symbols of the stage I'm entering. The last point of interest is that they speed up to a climax point, where after completing one cycle of 'descent' and 'ascent' that might take 6 months, I will do it again in 8 weeks, and then 3, and then a week, until I have a few days of doing it daily, until a climax point, usually accompanied by some major life upheaval and intense clairvoyance, and then begins the long ascent back over a period of about 3 months. So while I have had increasingly smaller cycles of ascent and descent in the 9 months before, that seems to make up a larger cycle of descent before the climax and beginning of the return.
Having started out looking at western traditions, I am familiar with skrying in the Kabbala, and planetary symbolism and correspondences, and actually the 8 classical planets fit perfectly with the content of the stages...but having traditional symbols to link my experience to doesn't validate my experience or help me understand it. While I'm sure many will say that have simply deluded myself into seeing a pattern, and then systematized it, and hypnotized myself to the point that my experience follows the course I've laid for myself, I have tried paying no attention to these macro concepts for about a month now and today it was just so obvious I figured I'd check in with you guys and see if anyone had noticed anything similar. I wouldn't be writing if I hadn't been thoroughly honest with myself and still had this seemingly objective fact stare back at me. I'm a highly functional 24 year old, I'm not trying to indulge in my own fantasies here, I try to be as objective as possible and think I may have simply looked for a pattern where others have not thought to look, since it is most easily revealed by introspective writing over months and years.
Thanks for your patience, if anyone made it this far.
By the way, when I use the term clairvoyance I am not implying the existence of a transcendent dualistic non-physical realm, but a period of intense synesthesia.
My two major questions are contained in the subject to this post. My self diagnosis after reading MTCB is that I reached Equanimity after almost two years in the Dark Night just a few weeks before I read the book, though I had no formal insight meditation practice, mainly just training concentration states and energy work. However, I did write almost every day, purely as a form of self examination, not as a record of my neurotic 'stuff', but in an effort to attain as heightened a perspective as possible and notice the patterns in my own thinking, and process the A&P event. This led to the discovery of an ongoing cycle that I don't see linked to the Theravada progress of insight maps, but as a regular cycling fluctuation in the content and perspective of my own thought over time, which also seems to possess the fractal quality of cycles within cycles.
Equanimity arrived with the realization that the desperate conceptualizing was all aimed at regaining the clarity of the A&P, that that was unhealthy, followed by the uncharacteristic lack of desire to record every insight or concept I had, lack of rushing to work my way out of my daily commitments by trying to become a millionaire, a sudden lapse in a long term chocolate addiction, ability to meditate for long periods of time again, etc...philosophical arguments lost all their importance and I could feel that I had moved my center from the memory of the 'miracle' of two years ago.
So the first question is, do you think the progress of insight has to be a product of 'microscopic' attention? It seems to me that there are obviously enlightened mystics from western traditions that attained that through attention that likely never counted vibrations per second...I'm convinced that Vipassana is probably the most direct route, but also that I have definitely progressed through several stages where my only insight practice was introspective writing, though certainly accompanied by morality, concentration and energy training.
The second question is about the cycles. I started to notice a pattern about 9 months after the A&P, where my ego would 'rise' and seem to dissolve over a period of weeks or months, depending on the cycle, and at the climax I would have the scary experience during meditation or a psychedelic trip (I used to take mushrooms every 6 months) of being torn apart, accompanied by an intense Kundalini rush, that left me completely relaxed and at peace. Then over the next few weeks or months, the ego would seem to 'descend' and solidify, until it would climax by it making itself noticed either to just myself or embarrassingly to others, and I would strengthen my efforts to see past the illusion of a unified self, until my next experience of being torn apart. So I bounce between these poles, of my ego being dissolved by forces that seem outside myself, and then dissolving it from the bottom up myself.
Sorry about the ramble, almost finished. In between these two poles I noticed, that there are 8 major stages, each with accompanying interests, and perspectives. For example, immediately after the experience of being torn apart, I feel perfectly centered for a week or two, then concepts just pour out of me, abstract philosophy, diagrams, accompanied by convincing clairvoyant abilities (most of which are explainable as aspects of heightened synesthesia), then academic interests, reading about the traditions, philosophy, followed by politics, martial arts, division of all kinds, and then unification interests, such as relationships, sex, renewing friendships, what the future of the internet will look like, mandalas, unified networks of all kinds, and then onto imagination, desire to write fiction, and review what I have written, interest in time, and then finally I land on earth, and it is all about finances, career, exercise. I then travel back up through the 8 stages, in about 1/6th the time, in what I have come to call the internal cycle, as each stage relates much more to myself, whereas the descent was more about social implications and epic ideas.
The stages present themselves not only in content but also in the metaphors I use while writing, and in the symbolism in my dreams. It's not a smooth spectrum, entry into the next stage is usually accompanied by a vivid dream featuring all the symbols of the stage I'm entering. The last point of interest is that they speed up to a climax point, where after completing one cycle of 'descent' and 'ascent' that might take 6 months, I will do it again in 8 weeks, and then 3, and then a week, until I have a few days of doing it daily, until a climax point, usually accompanied by some major life upheaval and intense clairvoyance, and then begins the long ascent back over a period of about 3 months. So while I have had increasingly smaller cycles of ascent and descent in the 9 months before, that seems to make up a larger cycle of descent before the climax and beginning of the return.
Having started out looking at western traditions, I am familiar with skrying in the Kabbala, and planetary symbolism and correspondences, and actually the 8 classical planets fit perfectly with the content of the stages...but having traditional symbols to link my experience to doesn't validate my experience or help me understand it. While I'm sure many will say that have simply deluded myself into seeing a pattern, and then systematized it, and hypnotized myself to the point that my experience follows the course I've laid for myself, I have tried paying no attention to these macro concepts for about a month now and today it was just so obvious I figured I'd check in with you guys and see if anyone had noticed anything similar. I wouldn't be writing if I hadn't been thoroughly honest with myself and still had this seemingly objective fact stare back at me. I'm a highly functional 24 year old, I'm not trying to indulge in my own fantasies here, I try to be as objective as possible and think I may have simply looked for a pattern where others have not thought to look, since it is most easily revealed by introspective writing over months and years.
Thanks for your patience, if anyone made it this far.
By the way, when I use the term clairvoyance I am not implying the existence of a transcendent dualistic non-physical realm, but a period of intense synesthesia.
Hey thanks for the thoughtful response...I really kind of stumbled onto the kabbala without formally skrying, I didn't start with the symbols, but I can understand now what kabbalists mean when they say that the sephiroth is just the framework, and that you come to understand the characteristics of each sphere through your own practice. But I still see it as more useful to observe what aspects of your life are effected by each sphere, and notice recurring metaphors, as opposed to charting lists of symbols as in 777. A bottom up approach I guess...But I am but a lowly lowly beginner It became more than a curiosity to me though when I became able to predict what kind of issues or events would be coming up in the next few weeks or months based on how long the current cycle was taking, and so it came to have a practical purpose; I can't delay it, but it is similar to Daniel saying in the book that you can plan your spiritual progress so as to avoid dark nights at inconvenient times, it serves a purpose for me as a map of meaning and content.
I'm not convinced yet that the cycle should be mapped onto the four path model at all, since it seems to deal primarily with the content of my experience, as opposed to a cycle of insight, and while they'll obviously overlap I'm hesitant to attempt a direct correlation. I'd be curious what your thoughts are on this. I suppose my changing relationship to the content can be taken as a mark of progress in insight, when you come to deal more directly with the overarching patterns themselves as opposed to their effects in your life. I guess my idea of a bottom up approach to the kabbala is just the voice of a beginner that can't see the point in working with the symbols themselves yet. But its still better than playing with a bunch of symbols without seeing their relation to your daily circumstances...which seems to be the trap caused by having so many cool metaphors to get lost in with the western magical approaches.
As for psychedelics, no AnP has been as powerful as that one, I was having lucid dreams of beings rearranging the geometry of my light body and waking up and being able to pinpoint the difference it had made, the others were mainly just long periods of non dual where I was effortlessly centred, etc...But! Even though psychedelics pointed the way I don't really think of them as part of my path, more just an enriching aspect of life. Like a lot of tai chi practitioners, I discovered chi on mushrooms, but I stick with tai chi to develop it, I don't go back to the mushrooms every time I want to make a chi ball.
Like I was saying to Bernardo, I think I'm going to really develop the tai chi as my major practice, I think it suits me better as an artist and a martial artist, and also appeals to my taste for magical traditions, basically ritual magic without props, which they usually say are just for beginners anyway.
Anyway, don't want to ramble.
Have you incorporated eastern and western traditions in your practice, or do you just stick to vipassana now?
It became more than a curiosity to me though when I became able to predict what kind of issues or events would be coming up in the next few weeks or months based on how long the current cycle was taking, and so it came to have a practical purpose; I can't delay it, but it is similar to Daniel saying in the book that you can plan your spiritual progress so as to avoid dark nights at inconvenient times, it serves a purpose for me as a map of meaning and content. I'm not convinced yet that the cycle should be mapped onto the four path model at all, since it seems to deal primarily with the content of my experience, as opposed to a cycle of insight, and while they'll obviously overlap I'm hesitant to attempt a direct correlation. I'd be curious what your thoughts are on this. I suppose my changing relationship to the content can be taken as a mark of progress in insight, when you come to deal more directly with the overarching patterns themselves as opposed to their effects in your life. I guess my idea of a bottom up approach to the kabbala is just the voice of a beginner that can't see the point in working with the symbols themselves yet. But its still better than playing with a bunch of symbols without seeing their relation to your daily circumstances...which seems to be the trap caused by having so many cool metaphors to get lost in with the western magical approaches.
As for psychedelics, no AnP has been as powerful as that one, I was having lucid dreams of beings rearranging the geometry of my light body and waking up and being able to pinpoint the difference it had made, the others were mainly just long periods of non dual where I was effortlessly centred, etc...But! Even though psychedelics pointed the way I don't really think of them as part of my path, more just an enriching aspect of life. Like a lot of tai chi practitioners, I discovered chi on mushrooms, but I stick with tai chi to develop it, I don't go back to the mushrooms every time I want to make a chi ball.
Like I was saying to Bernardo, I think I'm going to really develop the tai chi as my major practice, I think it suits me better as an artist and a martial artist, and also appeals to my taste for magical traditions, basically ritual magic without props, which they usually say are just for beginners anyway.
Anyway, don't want to ramble.
Have you incorporated eastern and western traditions in your practice, or do you just stick to vipassana now?
Yeah, the whole kabbalistic tree is like a mnemonic system for interpreting phenomena, and 777 is like the glossary for it! I think that studying the kabbalah is a lifetime of work but it's such a content-heavy system that it takes considerably more work to gain insight, in the fundamental sense, within it compared to vipassana.
Your own cycling sounds very personal and idiosyncratic, so I'd agree with avoiding trying to map it to the 4-Path system. It actually sounds like a sort of personalized system of divination so, if it's useful to you, do what works!
How your own awareness of this "cycle" (inverted commas just to differentiate between your own personal cycling, and the progress of insight) coincides with the cycles of insight I have no idea but I wouldn't get too fixated on this. There's a time and a place for dealing with content but during insight practice is not it, maybe start noting the thoughts and feelings which arise when you become aware of this cycling and see what's experiencing this. Look at the possibility that, as you've put quite a lot of effort into keeping track of these cycles, you may be scripting yourself into certain experiences due to the idea that "this is the way it's happened before" and so you come to expect it. I don't know if that's the case, it's just a suggestion but there's a lot learned about the fundamental nature of reality from being aware of what's happening during these phases at a sensory level.
Symbolism is content, it's not that it's not useful sometimes but it's worth remembering that this is just the finger that's pointing at the moon. The whole kabbalistic system is like having some sort of mystical OCD but the sensations which make up the frantic acts of mapping and correspondence are where the real insight can be found. The only remotely useful correspondences between this map and that of the Theravada that I found were:
Mind & Body = Malkuth, or possibly Yesod,
A&P = Tiphareth.
Dark Night = Da'ath/The Abyss (emphasis on 10th ñana, Re-Observation in the Abyss)
I seen some discussion about mapping the 1st - 4th Path's to the sephiroth above the Abyss but I find it difficult to figure 2nd/3rd path as somehow resolving within Chokmah, given that Stream Entry could be considered equivalent of Binah, and Arahatship being the equivalent of Kether. There's a whole world of mess to get involved with there which is why I've stopped trying to map my previous experience to the map I currently use to examine my practice as, unless you're a very skilled and scholarly magician with a lot of experience in both systems, then figuring this stuff out will just give you a headache.
Don't get me wrong, I have a lot of love for magick and it's practical application but my Path has led me to vipassana which has given better results and an experiential understanding of reality which I only glimpsed before. Maybe I was just a shit magician, who knows!
When it comes to the chemical approach, I hear you loud and clear. I've experimented with stuff from salvia divinorum to 5-Meo-DMT, but, for all the awesome or terrifying experiences, nothing has brought the same permanent changes in perception I've found through noting and concentration, but they've all taught something about how "I" perceive reality and opened some doors which I suspect would have remained closed otherwise. Either way, it's all totally impermanent, unsatisfying and not-self, which is what we're looking to see in every sensation with the techniques most commonly used on here. I believe that Kenneth Folk, another wonderful teacher who's site you might enjoy, encountered the A&P for the first time while on LSD so your experience is something fairly common. What's important is that it's led you to where you are now!
Oddly enough I'm a self-taught artist who practiced Tae Kwon Do for about ten years! It appears there's a few similarities in our stories here and I can certainly relate to your attraction towards ritual magick.....it looks really cool, visually and imaginatively! Ha! If you're interested in checking out a more pragmatic approach to magick, check out Chaos Magick, it's not a very relevant "magickal current" anymore but there's a similar attitude towards the sanctity of tradition, ritual and all the trappings as you'll find in the hardcore, pragmatic Dharma movement. Do what works for you, that's the only real advice I could give to be honest.
A quick point here also, the use of props within ritual seems to be mainly psychological. Just like the incense, the robes, temple configurations and suchlike, they're all aimed at bringing the mind to focus on certain basic concepts appropriate to the ritual itself e.g. the elemental symbolism of the dagger (Air), pantacle (Earth), cup (Water) and sword (Fire) and their associations with psychological faculties of the intellect, reason, intuition and will. It's not so much that they're "for beginners", the physical object ceases to become necessary once one can "tune in" to what's being symbolized without requiring the object itself.
Don't ever worry about rambling if we're having a conversation, I could talk the hind legs off of a donkey.
Keep us updated on what's happening for you and hopefully we'll see you more regularly!
Your own cycling sounds very personal and idiosyncratic, so I'd agree with avoiding trying to map it to the 4-Path system. It actually sounds like a sort of personalized system of divination so, if it's useful to you, do what works!
How your own awareness of this "cycle" (inverted commas just to differentiate between your own personal cycling, and the progress of insight) coincides with the cycles of insight I have no idea but I wouldn't get too fixated on this. There's a time and a place for dealing with content but during insight practice is not it, maybe start noting the thoughts and feelings which arise when you become aware of this cycling and see what's experiencing this. Look at the possibility that, as you've put quite a lot of effort into keeping track of these cycles, you may be scripting yourself into certain experiences due to the idea that "this is the way it's happened before" and so you come to expect it. I don't know if that's the case, it's just a suggestion but there's a lot learned about the fundamental nature of reality from being aware of what's happening during these phases at a sensory level.
Symbolism is content, it's not that it's not useful sometimes but it's worth remembering that this is just the finger that's pointing at the moon. The whole kabbalistic system is like having some sort of mystical OCD but the sensations which make up the frantic acts of mapping and correspondence are where the real insight can be found. The only remotely useful correspondences between this map and that of the Theravada that I found were:
Mind & Body = Malkuth, or possibly Yesod,
A&P = Tiphareth.
Dark Night = Da'ath/The Abyss (emphasis on 10th ñana, Re-Observation in the Abyss)
I seen some discussion about mapping the 1st - 4th Path's to the sephiroth above the Abyss but I find it difficult to figure 2nd/3rd path as somehow resolving within Chokmah, given that Stream Entry could be considered equivalent of Binah, and Arahatship being the equivalent of Kether. There's a whole world of mess to get involved with there which is why I've stopped trying to map my previous experience to the map I currently use to examine my practice as, unless you're a very skilled and scholarly magician with a lot of experience in both systems, then figuring this stuff out will just give you a headache.
Don't get me wrong, I have a lot of love for magick and it's practical application but my Path has led me to vipassana which has given better results and an experiential understanding of reality which I only glimpsed before. Maybe I was just a shit magician, who knows!
When it comes to the chemical approach, I hear you loud and clear. I've experimented with stuff from salvia divinorum to 5-Meo-DMT, but, for all the awesome or terrifying experiences, nothing has brought the same permanent changes in perception I've found through noting and concentration, but they've all taught something about how "I" perceive reality and opened some doors which I suspect would have remained closed otherwise. Either way, it's all totally impermanent, unsatisfying and not-self, which is what we're looking to see in every sensation with the techniques most commonly used on here. I believe that Kenneth Folk, another wonderful teacher who's site you might enjoy, encountered the A&P for the first time while on LSD so your experience is something fairly common. What's important is that it's led you to where you are now!
Like I was saying to Bernardo, I think I'm going to really develop the tai chi as my major practice, I think it suits me better as an artist and a martial artist, and also appeals to my taste for magical traditions, basically ritual magic without props, which they usually say are just for beginners anyway.
Oddly enough I'm a self-taught artist who practiced Tae Kwon Do for about ten years! It appears there's a few similarities in our stories here and I can certainly relate to your attraction towards ritual magick.....it looks really cool, visually and imaginatively! Ha! If you're interested in checking out a more pragmatic approach to magick, check out Chaos Magick, it's not a very relevant "magickal current" anymore but there's a similar attitude towards the sanctity of tradition, ritual and all the trappings as you'll find in the hardcore, pragmatic Dharma movement. Do what works for you, that's the only real advice I could give to be honest.
A quick point here also, the use of props within ritual seems to be mainly psychological. Just like the incense, the robes, temple configurations and suchlike, they're all aimed at bringing the mind to focus on certain basic concepts appropriate to the ritual itself e.g. the elemental symbolism of the dagger (Air), pantacle (Earth), cup (Water) and sword (Fire) and their associations with psychological faculties of the intellect, reason, intuition and will. It's not so much that they're "for beginners", the physical object ceases to become necessary once one can "tune in" to what's being symbolized without requiring the object itself.
Don't ever worry about rambling if we're having a conversation, I could talk the hind legs off of a donkey.
Keep us updated on what's happening for you and hopefully we'll see you more regularly!