When I say "done" it seems from reading that I'm pointing to the knot of perception. I don't really know what the knot is tying here though.  I'm testing my understanding although I feel very lost on what to even look for at this point. From what I get the knot of perception has been untied as some point leading to a very strong feeling of satisfaction and feeling like my heart got unplugged from a parasite sucking its energy, to retie itself later on.

What untied it? I don't know directly and it assumes that I'm even talking about it accurately here, one was finding out non-locality experientially and another was upon waking up from sleep after giving up completely on "finishing" the cycle and going through social comparitive emotions a lot. I really questioned my own motivations until I arived at a certain conclusion that these emotions are nothing without context. 

Using psychedelics as aids to my investigation has came up with nothing and there hasn't been any substantial change in over 3 months now while before there was a qualititative change nearly every week. There doesn't seem to be any tension of doership, agency, centerness, perception or awareness but yet it doesn't feel complete. I'm well aware of the stigma of overcalling paths so I won't bother saying what I think about that nor do I really care, I just want done. 

There's not enough tension or effort being put into my experience to actually cause me to be energized off of the suffering and in that way, I tend to fall asleep in meditation a lot recently. Being in a dissolution phase is possible although I've hit some cessations recently just to be tired again. It's also confusing because in a sense, it's sort of my "normal." 

Self is hard to find and isn't giving the clues it once was. There's restlessness and conceit present and there's frustration that it can't get to the core. There's a level of dysphoria that would probably be classified as a mental illness if it wasn't seen as empty. It's also contradictory as it knows there's a problem with searching while yet searching is how to move "forward." There was a fixation on formless objects that has sort of been worked on. There was a pointing of my conception of "this experience" as not a singular experience that I have also worked through recently. There seems to be some tension in my chin area with a sort of band coming down from my forehead onto my chest. 

There's dissatisfaction in that this whole thing just feels so normal, drug cravings are literally higher than when I even started this whole thing. I go back and forth on getting excited about finding things that may lead to an answer and later disappointed that it didn't. 

I'd love to ask a single question to get an answer but I don't even know what to ask but I'd love to hear thoughts

I can't tell from what you write, but in some cases with something like dysphoria the cause and effect relationships are not what they seem.

What do you think is causing the dysphoria?

What do you think the effects of the dysphoria are?

Try switching the causes and effects. Do things make more sense that way?


If you are using recreational drugs, you might have a different perspective if you stopped them for a year or two. 

That's actually an interesting question and I'm not sure which is more accurate. I would say I'm used to thinking of it as this dissatisfaction->dysphoria because the dysphoria itself isn't something I get set off by, it's more of an unfavorable state that points to something being off else what would be creating it I think? But as you pointed out, it can also be dysphoria->dissatisfaction.  

Keep in mind this answer is given purely in terms of the MCTB framework:

There is a defined endpoint only to the 'breadth' dimension of vipassana. It's the completion of 4th path, with a fundamental and stable transformation of your baseline reference frame of experience and all the benefits that come from it. You should be able to identify relief from that particular existential dissatisfaction (dukkha) that comes from identifying around your previous frame of reference. If you're still regularly experiencing that particular existential dissatisfaction in your base frame of reference, you can safely assume there's still fuel to be burned in vipassana practice and you are not done, even if you can't yet identify what the form of that fuel is.

Also it's important to note that under the MCTB framework, even after 4th path, development can continue along the axes of depth of vipassana, morality, concentration, teaching ability, etc.

This could be me. I wish I had the answer. If you find it, will you write it please? 

This is just another craving. Who exactly would be done?

Could I inquiry into what you mean here by existential dissatisfaction? You seem to make a distinction of the types before and after this frame of reference is broken. How would one know the difference?




Best thing I could say is that effort from actions seem to be a smoke signal in a dissolution type phase that can bring up the tension thats prevalent in later dark night stages.


This is just a very lazy pointer

The word "done" is often misused in regard to spiritual practices, at least in my experience. I did reach a certain point at which it seemed the mysterious, habit-driven, and existential longing for ownership, self-identification, and control were seen through clearly. The mysteries attached to those chimeras stopped nagging at that point, creating a feeling that some major part of my previous existence and desire to practice had ended. Those urges no longer drove my practice. I think that's usually the point at which people use the word "done," and it corresponds to MTCB fourth path. But we're not "done" in any final sense at that point, or ever. There are innumerable remaining parts of ourselves to explore, mainly having to do with staying basically self-aware and sane, in all senses of that word.

JMHO, of course.

You're right, it was pretty lazy. I find that an interesting comment though because you were talking about a lack of effort. Maybe you are making more effort than you realize to stay in place?

I'm sorry, I don't you or your practice very well and could be totally off base here.

EDIT: BTW I am nowhere near done myself 

I tend to do dreamless lucid sleep during dissolution (or maybe it is some form of dreaming but without the storytelling), and it feels like there is a whole lot of disentangling going on during that phase. I wonder if the cases I have had of tougher dukkha nanas lately have followed from dissolution phases when I did something different from that. Interesting.

I've got few pointers maybe:

What own the arisings?

To what those arising belong to?

Where is the anyliser of '' this '' reality?

Just relax into/as the arising - What is relaxing?

Where is the one wanting realisation?

What has to say a word about what is?

I find mahamudra/dzogchen non-meditation very helpful in this territory you are as myself from time to time ( I think ).

aloha aaron,

   Perhaps you could approach meditation from the standpoint of "just sitting," "letting go," and "letting the mud settle." Drop all of your expectations, attempt to live a normal life with normal life satisfactions, and meditate on the side with the aim of slowly acquiring wisdom through resistless adaptation to life's demands.

terry



On a leafless branch
A crow comes to rest –
Autumn nightfall

~bassho

"It's like my painter friend donald used to say, 'Stick a fork in their ass and turn them over, they're "done."'"

~lou reed

If you like canon references, you'll want to see the Sallatha Sutta (The Arrow).

But here's a quick and dirty summary:

Before that frame of reference is broken, when something unpleasant happens to you, there's the intial pain of the experience (The first arrow), and then there's a whole feedback loop in your mind about all the circumstances around it, what it means for who you think you are, why it had to happen to you, and on and on. That second part (The second arrow) is the existential part because it comes from how you are subtly conditioned to seeing yourself in relation to the 'stuff' that's going on, i.e. your frame of reference.

After that frame of reference is broken, when something unpleasant happens to you, there's the initial pain, but the whole downward mental spiral gets cut from there. You have a fundamentally different relationship with the 'stuff' and don't get hit by the second arrow.

Make sense?