I just found this and it might be helpful for others...

It talks about how experiences arise at each stage, along with the characteristics thoughts/emoitons/sensations. 

Rena's Insight Map (wordpress.com)

Found on this page: Bryngarth II 2020 – Fire Kasina

Interesting, seems to be a lot of discussion on this subject lately. 

I like the description of "fields melting into each other". I've described it as flipping or inverting previously, but that's a much better way of putting it. When I watched the countersign stabilizing last night I noticed that it doesn't do much at that stage, it's mostly the murk that's melting repeatedly until it finally stabilizes and it's all one open bright thing. It's like the sign stabilizes first, followed by a "melting" murk, and once they're both stable and merged it's the countersign. Probably what they're referring to with "zooming in (sign) and zooming out (murk) at the same time".

The reference to golden light is also interesting. Adi mentioned in another thread that kasina practise is a good route to the jhanic arc. The color kasinas can also be used to unlock the PL jhanas if the prerequisites are there. I suspect this can also happen accidentally using fire kasina since we sometimes accidentally focus on the colors (red, yellow/orange, blue, white) that make up the flame, instead of the flame itself.

In any case, thanks for posting this.

*edited to make the transition from sign to countersign more clear

I'm curious - that stages of insight grid looks awfully familiar. Isn't that something Daniel did years ago?

EDIT: I found the Daniel Ingram version: https://www.integrateddaniel.info/insight-stages-table.     

EDIT 2: Link fixed - thanks Bud E

Thanks Shargrol.

I think Chris was trying to link to this: Nanas+and+jhanas+tablep1.pdf (squarespace.com)

Easily my most favorite meditation table of all time (except I still do not know what ariable means and wonder if it is a typo). 

I’m curious - how would you define countersign?

Yeah, that table came about mostly due to Rena's phenomenological and mapping interest and a wee bit of my encouragement to get her helpful voice and useful insights out there, and, yes, clearly inspired by my earlier work, which was inspired by lots of other people's earlier work, and turtles all the way down. Very glad you find her iterations on this theme useful!

Countersign as I seem to experience it would be when the sign has stabilized to the point that it's clear, stable and bright. At this point the murk no longer seems to be seperate, and it also is clear, stable and bright. Similar to how they report in the pdf, this seems to happen after moving through the nanas until equanimity is also stable. Maintaining relaxed attention on the kasina object, then afterimage, then sign, and then sign/murk until they merge into countersign. The color of the kasina will seem very alluring at this point. Doing the white kasina, night time walks can seem brightly lit, like a merging of night and day (and daytime can seem like walking on the surface of a lightbulb). Doing blue kasina, any elements of blue in the visual field glows and even white light seems to bend towards blue. The opposite color also becomes bright, so the visual field has tints of yellow as well. Since I do kasina practise eyes open against a white background, it seems to tinge the color towards yellow instead of orange. When I practise eyes closed it's more like the usual orange.

One other thing to note is that since countersign seems associated with stable equanimity, which is associated with 4th, you'll also know you're in that territory if it seems easy to jump off into other states from there. Until it's stable that won't really be a reliable thing.

I hope this is more useful than confusing. Doing the practise almost entirely eyes open produces slightly different results, but the general process seems the same.

Oh okay. Then we use terms differently. I was suspecting that. Thanks for clarifying!

I'm curious in what way. If i'm using terms incorrectly, i'd like to correct that. As a few meditators including Leigh B have pointed out though, the terminology has evolved over time so it depends on which tradition you're coming from (pre or post Visuddhimagga). I'm going with the more Visuddhimagga based practise, where it's focused on developing the nimitta (literally sign). Always interested in hearing alternate interpretations though, or corrections if i've wandered off on some tangled path. 

Hi Bud E

I understand that there is a kind of practice that involves looking at a candle or a source of light and then using the afterimage on the retina in some way. Though I know that this kind of practice exists, I have personally never practiced it in  that way and I don't know the terminology of the practice neither do I know the results one gets.

I recently had a discussion with someone on reddit who wanted me to clarify what I was talking about. They wanted to know how stuff works for me when I practice the fire kasina. Here is the link to the comment, in case it interests you. Thanks

​​​​​​​https://www.reddit.com/r/streamentry/comments/yi6wi4/comment/iuy9r6y/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3

Thanks for clarifying. Much like Linda has learned to do, there are times where the sign hasn't developed yet (or even the afterimage), but I just trust that it will all pan out if I just keep focusing on the spot at the center of the visual field, and sure enough it develops in time. So, i'm not sure if the initial afterimage is actually that important. What seems to do the trick is just looking at that spot with relaxed equanimous attention no matter what is occurring in the visual field for as long as it takes. I'll bow out here though, Linda is in good hands and I don't want to muddy the waters.

I'm currently going with Adi's instructions, which means that I would ignore any images based on the opposite colors which appear as a function of how the eye works. I don't use the term countersign at all. For me the learning sign corresponds to what Daniel Ingram would call a third screen image of the candle flame, not the dot. The counterpart sign would be a fullblown nimitta that is extremely bright and focused and welldefined and associated with concentration so strong that it will draw me into full absorption which would mean that the entire world around me would fall away. 

I know that Daniel Ingram and many with him has had very impressive results from using retina burns to begin with in fire kasina, so I'm not discarding it. That's just not what I'm doing. 

I tried earth kasina for a while, and in doing so I read instructions from some of the old texts (embarrassingly enough I don't remember which one), and from reading that text I came to the conclusion that I was to ignore the image that was based on the opposite colors from exhaustion of the eye. The learning sign is supposed to be a photorealistic mental image of the kasina, projected out behind closed eyes so that it is like actually looking at the kasina.