Fruition = third eye opening?

George S, modified 5 Years ago at 7/31/19 2:11 PM
Created 5 Years ago at 7/31/19 2:09 PM

Fruition = third eye opening?

Posts: 2722 Join Date: 2/26/19 Recent Posts
It feels to me like fruitions are openings in the third eye chakra. For me, third eye blockage manifests as a persistent headache and seems to be related to the hindrance of vicikiccha (doubt, overthinking) and also the fetter of sakkaya-ditthi (self-view, the feeling that there is a centrepoint to myexperience). When I relax these in meditation then eventually brain activity slows down to a distinct strobing, I feel like I’m falling into it and there’s a surge of “tingles” (piti?) into the brain which knocks me out for a bit. After that brain activity starts up slowly again and there’s a pleasant ambient feeling (sukha?). It’s a similar set-up to unblocking any of the other chakras, although being in the brain it can’t be experienced like the others.

I guess I’m trying to align different traditions here. It seems to me that kundalini= piti, blocked chakras are psychophysical representations of repressed emotions due to hindrances/fetters and vipassana nanas represent progression through the jhanas. I know the four fruition path model is not in the suttas,but it does seem that after each fruition cycle the kundalini subsides and it requires uncovering deeper chakra blockages (i.e. dropping more fetters) to reactivate it and start the next cycle.

Thoughts anyone?
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Daniel M Ingram, modified 5 Years ago at 8/1/19 4:27 AM
Created 5 Years ago at 8/1/19 4:27 AM

RE: Fruition = third eye opening?

Posts: 3278 Join Date: 4/20/09 Recent Posts
Tingles: typically something in the second vipassana jhana, meaing some variant of the A&P territory.

Kundalini: same.

Chakras: same.

The second vipassana jhana/A&P territory is where that perspective happens, where bliss happens, where that sort of joy happens, where energy and the like are more prominent, etc.

As to path cycles, it is very easy to confuse the A&P with a path or Fruition.

What specific experiences are you calling paths or Fruitions?
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spatial, modified 5 Years ago at 8/1/19 9:21 AM
Created 5 Years ago at 8/1/19 9:21 AM

RE: Fruition = third eye opening?

Posts: 615 Join Date: 5/20/18 Recent Posts
Daniel M. Ingram:
Tingles: typically something in the second vipassana jhana, meaing some variant of the A&P territory.

Kundalini: same.

Chakras: same.

The second vipassana jhana/A&P territory is where that perspective happens, where bliss happens, where that sort of joy happens, where energy and the like are more prominent, etc.
I have a question about this, relating to what I've been experiencing over the past year. Is it possible to oscillate back and forth between the 2nd and 4th vipassana jhanas, many times in one sit? I feel like there are times I have a lot of awareness of tingling and chakras and such, and then I suddenly don't, and back and forth. I feel like this is related to a process of purification. I have had many events that seem to fit the description of "A&P events" over the course of this. 

I have not had anything that I can conclusively label as a fruition. Is it possible, however, for someone in this oscillating state to have a fruition, and associate it with 2nd vipassana jhana awareness of kundalini that may have preceded it 30 seconds earlier?
A Dietrich Ringle, modified 5 Years ago at 8/1/19 1:07 PM
Created 5 Years ago at 8/1/19 1:07 PM

RE: Fruition = third eye opening?

Posts: 881 Join Date: 12/4/11 Recent Posts
spatial:
Daniel M. Ingram:
Tingles: typically something in the second vipassana jhana, meaing some variant of the A&P territory.

Kundalini: same.

Chakras: same.

The second vipassana jhana/A&P territory is where that perspective happens, where bliss happens, where that sort of joy happens, where energy and the like are more prominent, etc.
I have a question about this, relating to what I've been experiencing over the past year. Is it possible to oscillate back and forth between the 2nd and 4th vipassana jhanas, many times in one sit? I feel like there are times I have a lot of awareness of tingling and chakras and such, and then I suddenly don't, and back and forth. I feel like this is related to a process of purification. I have had many events that seem to fit the description of "A&P events" over the course of this. 

I have not had anything that I can conclusively label as a fruition. Is it possible, however, for someone in this oscillating state to have a fruition, and associate it with 2nd vipassana jhana awareness of kundalini that may have preceded it 30 seconds earlier?

I always fall for descriptions such as this original. I think the stuff that Daniel diagnoses as AandP is actually fruition occurrence. In my experience the Mastery of diagnosing such A&P events is related to 2nd/3rd Path dialogue in which craving is lessoned.
George S, modified 5 Years ago at 8/2/19 10:26 AM
Created 5 Years ago at 8/2/19 1:03 AM

RE: Fruition = third eye opening?

Posts: 2722 Join Date: 2/26/19 Recent Posts
Daniel M. Ingram:

What specific experiences are you calling paths or Fruitions?

For background, I am a 45 year old male househusband. Aged 5 I had a deep experience of infinite space/consciousness (formless jhana?). I asked my Mum what would happen to the universe when I died and she replied it would continue without me, which I found hard to believe given my experience that consciousness was the entire universe. Around that time I started to develop nervous tics (kriyas?), partly in response to parental/schooling factors, which plagued me for many years. As a teenager I got into philosophy/spirituality/yoga/meditation and went through a renunciate phase, although it was all quite short-lived. I also took LSD once which in retrospect looked like brief A&P followed by horrible Dark Night followed by Equanimity. Later I experienced buzzing in the chest (kundalini?), got tinnitus and also panic attacks – fun times. For the next 25 years I chased the sensual/material world, having a few happy experiences and a lot more unhappiness. I went through therapy and eventually suffered 3 deep depressions. A year ago I was considering suicide but I realized that it was just a childish fantasy and on some level I was choosing to be depressed (or at least it was a learned behavior). I somehow decided I had had enough of being depressed and I quit antidepressants and therapy and decided to meditate my way out of it and “become my own therapist”.

Six months ago I came across MCTB and my meditation deepened as I realized that my unrealistic teenage fantasies of nirvana were maybe possible for a middle aged western householder. I had what I now think was an A&P experience, where I was meditating eyes open and my visual field started to “blaze” (forms dissolving into dancing field of lights/electrical energy). My experience flipped from of me watching reality to “reality watching me” and I suddenly realized that “there is no one here”. It was very depersonalizing and freaked me out a little, so I backed off practice a bit went through a mild depression/anxiety phase for a few weeks. At this point I wasn’t sure if I had actually crossed A&P, but I reread the progress of insight and decided to try repeat the experience. In a single 2h session I seemed to go through all the nanas as described and land in equanimity (whilst thinking this is too easy and I probably just scripted myself). Suddenly I felt a little tingle of excitement  and the thought appeared “this it, I’m about to hit a fruition”, but I started to feel scared like I was about to meet God and get annihilated. I instinctively opened my eyes to “save myself” and had the feeling that “reality had been switched back on”. I decided this was low probability fruition and just to keep practicing.

For the next few weeks I kept cycling through the nanas up to equanimity but was having a hard time stabilizing equanimity (it seemed too pleasant and normal, like my depressive/aversive personality didn’t deserve it). I decided to practice metta and jhana to smooth out the jarring vipassana ride. By this time I was meditating 2-5 hours most days and also reading widely across different Buddhisms and other religions/religious experiences. I had several more “fruition is coming” moments, always backing away in fear again. I started working with a kundalini therapist who helped me balance out my emotional/family life and this seemed to stabilize/deepen my meditative experiences. After another few weeks I had a 3h session where I got very calm and gave up on making progress. Suddenly mental formations slowed down and my focus seemed to zoom in over a blue curved hull and suddenly vanish. My immediate thought was “that was a fruition” and then “or maybe not”, but in any case I relaxed and watched reality slowly start to reassemble itself, starting with some swirling flux like a cloud of ink unfurling underwater and then a slow reboot of self and thoughts. Things felt the same and yet subtly different. Although this felt much more like a proper fruition, the actual zooming in experience was similar in kind to the first one a few weeks prior, which would mean second path, which seemed improbable to me. Due to householder conditions I didn’t have much time/space to try repeat the experiences so I tried to keep practicing as much as possible assuming that nothing special had happened.  If they were fruitions my competitive personality would be satisfied but my better self would feel short-changed since there’s still a lot of personality left (witness my posting here for validation). Part of the diagnosis problem is that I don’t get enough sleep, so I’m often sleepy at the critical moment (although I do find that relaxing towards sleep can sometimes help me to let go and then I snap back to awareness in a deeper phase of meditation).

The last few weeks have been much more about kundalini awakening, working on my stuff and life changes to improve my paramis and reduce my not insignificant karmic debt. There’s also a much deeper realization that the personality is an illusion and what remains beyond that is already awake. So that’s where I am now with these strong surges of kundalini blasting the headache in my third eye. I tend to agree this is A&P because it’s all very powerful energy/bliss and there’s still some ambient awareness of myself through the blasts, although it's lasted a couple of weeks which is much longer than previous 1-2 day A&P experiences.There hasn’t really been the stable equanimity and the feeling of being caught by surprise like the last possible fruitions. If I were to believe the 4 fruition path model (which I question) then I would also be reluctant to diagnose myself anagami because it seems too much like wishful thinking to me to think I’ve dropped fetters 4 & 5, although they have definitely attenuated somewhat from my formerly extreme levels.

I guess my current goals are to keep improving my sila, hopefully watch the chakras unblock further and kundalini flowing more freely around my body, and also to deepen the jhanas (still only the occasional fleeing nimitta). The biggest obstacle now in meditation seems to be the fear of death/annihilation, it feels like if I take that final step I may never come back (which I guess is true in some sense).  My kundalini therapist is Tibetan Buddhist and basically doesn’t acknowledge anything about fruitions/cessations, which tends to dent the ego so must be good. I’ve notice an interesting tradeoff to spending more time helping others – there’s less time for meditating but the quality improves. I’ve also been reconnecting with the advaita vedanta sages I read as a teenager and finding it hard to resist just strapping myself to the God rocket for a ride. But yeah, my sober Buddhist/jhana mindset tells me that is just another conditioned experience which should fade into equanimity.
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Shaun Steelgrave, modified 5 Years ago at 8/2/19 9:36 AM
Created 5 Years ago at 8/2/19 9:36 AM

RE: Fruition = third eye opening?

Posts: 121 Join Date: 7/7/19 Recent Posts
In my experience, the kundalini, the piti, the raptures are the equivalent of water-wings along the path to enlightenment. At some point you discover they’re holding you back, you take them off, and you swim.
George S, modified 5 Years ago at 8/2/19 10:29 AM
Created 5 Years ago at 8/2/19 10:29 AM

RE: Fruition = third eye opening?

Posts: 2722 Join Date: 2/26/19 Recent Posts
Thanks Shaun, that's just what I needed to hear.
neko, modified 5 Years ago at 8/3/19 2:35 AM
Created 5 Years ago at 8/3/19 2:35 AM

RE: Fruition = third eye opening?

Posts: 763 Join Date: 11/26/14 Recent Posts
spatial:
Is it possible to oscillate back and forth between the 2nd and 4th vipassana jhanas, many times in one sit? I feel like there are times I have a lot of awareness of tingling and chakras and such, and then I suddenly don't, and back and forth.

It sounds like you are oscillating between the A&P and Dissolution. Very unlikely that you are oscillating between the A&P and Equanimity. Read again the description of Dissolution and see if it lines up with your experience.