Hey guys,

Yesterday I achieved 3th Path. Here is my last post:

https://www.dharmaoverground.org/discussion/-/message_boards/message/25571198

From the 25th of July till the 29th I meditated maybe 4-5 hours a day plus a few hours of binging on the internet as I was trying to quit but wasn't successful. I hit what I think to be A&P on the 28th during a meditation session. It lasted, no kidding, maybe 30 seconds. Basically felt like I was slightly happier - had a thought of "Things are good", had a small uplift in mood, the type of happiness most would feel if they just ate some chocolate cake that they were craving. Nothing huge whatsoever. I went to feed my cat, came back to meditate, and that feeling was already gone. I of course noted that this was probably the A&P. 

As I said prior, when I meditate, I meditate doing "Choiceless awareness" or as I simply call it, meditation. I don't do noting. body scanning, trying to see what sense door I am feeling or any of that nonsense, stuff like that made no sense to me for sometime now. Reality is just is, you don't need to look for anything. You notice, but you don't have to notice what you noticed. When meditating on 3rd Path, it felt harder, sure, but it wasn't anything that I wasn't doing prior. It just felt slightly deeper and more slippery. 

I have no idea when I had Re-Observation, literally did not feel anything. They say 3rd Path is the Dark Night of the whole thing but not for me I guess. I finally got how to comfortably and consistently meditate on 3rd Path on the 30th and I was doing maybe 6 hours a day plus the rest off-the-cushion. I was feeling like I was getting it on the 31st but I didn't get it that day since my concentration was off and I didn't focus more often than not. On the 1st of August I had a rest day so I just laid down on the coach for 7 hours. I didn't really meditate hard for the first 4 hours but when hard later on when I realised that things were easy and I was probably close to it. At around 16:30 I tried to look in the distance to force a cessation if you will (lol) but it didn't work. I ended up just drinking a bottle of water after, put it down and got the cessation at 16:31. What followed is a classic feeling of "No way that was it" followed by happiness and bliss, just like what happened at 1st and 2nd Path.

Here are the changes I noticed: 

- When I move through space, for example, turning a corner, there would be a gap where my mind would wander somewhere for a split second as I would need to think how to turn the corner etc. Now this gap is not there so things feel extremely fluid when moving.
- Before when I opened my eyes there would be a gap where things would "turn on" so to speak and would diminish when my eyes are closed. This doesn't happen, it's like things are always on even if I am opening or closing my eyes. This is what people call luminosity but this is the way I can describe it in my own words. 
-Thoughts are so quiet but some stuff left to go. When I would binge on the internet and then leave the room my DMN would instantly turn on and I could notice it clearlly and loudly. Now it turns on but it's so quiet that it greatly diminishes my suffering. Though again not there yet.
-4th Path feels even easier than 3rd to meditate on even though supposedly you stop cycling now but since I am doing choiceless awareness it doesn't actually change anything. I expect to get it sometime this week. 

I did not do any jhana whatsoever. From the very beginning "concentration" practice to me is literally the exact opposite of meditation and I have no idea why jhanas get any attention whatsoever aside from the party trick feel that I think they can provide. Sure, it will improve your concentration, but so will proper insight meditation. You're basically just wasting your time if you spend on-the-cushion practice for this instead of insight. I never voiced my opinion on this despite the fact that it feels like common sense just because I didn't have the insights so I couldn't speak from direct experience. But now I can at least comfortably say this with confidence.

No, I do not have doubt that this is 3rd Path. It's obvious. Maybe somebody could gaslight me after a day that I didn't get 2nd Path because the effects somewhat took a few days to really notice as the reactivitylessness would only show itself at my lowest points a few days after the happiness wears off. But this is just on another level.

Attached reaction after path:


Cheers 

It's great that mediation is working for you. A lot of people find that it doesn't do anything at all or they just find it too boring or uncomfortable to do. So being able to meditate a lot and having a positive outcome right away is quite something. Going forward you might also consider that, based on your descriptions, you may be leaving most of the benefits of mediation on the table. That is good news. There can definitely be more to come.

I am curious about some things you said and would be obliged if you could answer some questions I have. Please feel free to completely ignore:

1. What does A and P mean to you, personally. What meaning do you draw from the term, and what meaning do you draw from the experience. Please note that I am not asking about 'phenomenology'. Whether your eyelids flutter, or you feel really excited and hear angels sing while your left elbow is cold and right elbow is warm - I am not asking about such things. Due to the A and P how did your 'view' change or not change. World view, self view, view of society, friends etc etc

2. Same question for cessation

3. Detailed phenomenology of cessation the event itself ... not the entry or the exit

4. When you say choiceless awareness could you give a detailed algorithmic breakdown of what you do

5. If you were required to do a slow systematic bodyscan for one hour with upwards and downwards passes like a CT scan taking slices, wherein you look for skin/flesh/bones or the elemental qualities of fire water earth wind, with each scan slow and steady and looking for only thing on each scan ..... how would it go? I am not asking whether you see value in this. I am saying will you be able to do it? Will you be annoyed/irritated/offended/pleased/equanimous?

​​​​​​​Thanks in advance, and like I said feel free to ignore.

Very motivating to read how much you are meditating. This would be true even if you had no paths.

Bump

Naughty bot!

Who is thebottom? Just curious?
​​​​​​​

I meant bot

(I think a moderator deleted the post that was probably left by a bot.)

Yes, I deleted the bot post - and I forgot to leave a note to that effect.

- Chris M

It looks like the post by "Clifford Richmond" is a bot too. It comes months after the original post and restates my post to the OP with very slightly different wording. "Clifford Richmond" has one other post in another thread, which rephrased a post by Chis in that thread.

What do these bots gain by making these sorts of posts? 

Aaaaaand I've deleted that one, too.

Thanks!

This is a small community talking about a very niche topic.

It amazes me that someone actually takes time and effort to sign up a bot or multiple bots to post in this forum.

Because there is a sign up required to post, I am assuming that human intervention is required.

Are they trying to sell something? They are usually  deleted before I can read them.  . 

With AI these days the whole process of signing up and even pretending to be human can be automated!

Kudos man! Glad you worked hard and meditation is paying you with heft dividends. It always does.

It took me 2 years to go from 3rd path to 4th.

-

I achieved 5th path in a single day.

Hey guys,

Quick update.

I am well. I wanted to wait till enlightenment before making an update but it's been too long.

I am slowly grinding away at 4th Path.

Yes, my assessment is accurate, I don't really have anything new to say about that. It's been over a year so I guess you can be more sure in my assessment. Though I re-read the post and it was worded poorly so I might clarify some things later.

I will update when I actually make it, or shortly after.

Love you all, Andrew
@adivader @strange_loop  @strangeloop_5234gf @shargrol @pollyester @chrismarti @nek

Please someone else or a mod tag everyone else in this post because I don't know how to @ them because I don't see their handle.  Edit 1:  I will answer all questions later.

​​​​​​​

Nice. I am also grinding away at 3rd to 4th, lots of interesting shifts, super fast cycling, feelings of being done and then not, psychological stuff, subtle practices, non-subtle ones, my practice journal isn't super detailed but has some stuff. If you want to chat about it on discord I am sliqz /other apps.

PS: People who answered in a thread usually get tagged automatically.

​​​​​​​Bingo!

I had at least 8 times where I thought I was about to get 4th path soon but then more deeper layers of sensations would show up and immediately prompt me to contract like crazy.

I gave up trying to predict when I will get it after that lol.

But the super fast cycling of around 30-45 minutes each is awesome because progress is basically inevitable unless you really try hard not to meditate. 

I may get 4th path in a few days or in a few months. I don't really know.

It would be great if you could get back to addressing Adi's questions here. 

It really doesn't seem to me that your describing post 3rd territory. 

One doesn't really "grind away" after third path. One usually has to transcend the grind to get to third. 

I think it is very likely you are over blowing the significance of some of the things you're experiencing. 

If you want to participate in good faith here it would be best to address some of the questions you have been asked and take in some of what has been said to you here and elsewhere

You're just making posts like "Became an Arahat 5 nano seconds after being born" and then not really discussing any of the specifics. Especially not when you are asked point blank. 

Seems kinda whack. Reads like clickbait. 

@bahiyababy
​​​​​​​
Sure. I wanted to leave questions for after 4th but I'll answer now. 

@adivader

1. 

Literally did not change whatsoever. Sure I felt happy initally but it doesn't last. 

2. 

Same as 1. 

3. 

Cessation doesn't have experience. This is basic theory. Like a cut in a movie. 

4. 

I wrote a new rough guide here: https://www.dharmaoverground.org/discussion/-/message_boards/message/32073967

But in short, pick an object (your breath) and use it as a metronome to stay in what we call "expansion mode". This is where everything feels quite, is being observed, and there is this large feeling of tension that eventually gets quite uncomfortable that will force you to go back into "contraction mode", where things feel loud and unsatisfying. When you realise you contracted, then you are no longer contracted and you can immediately start focusing on the inhale and exhales that make you stay in expansion mode. In MCTB2, Daniel Ingram implies you have to notice each sensation by inclining your conciousness into expansion mode for each one. This is incorrect. You don't have to expand over and over, you just have to put your consiousness into that state as often as needed to stay in that state and the sensations will just happen by themselves so you don't need to worry about them at all. 

I forgot to post a video initially but here is one. This is literally how I meditate. I stayed in expansion mode and noticed all sensations for the entire 45 seconds of the clip.

Notice how my rate of breathing changes depending on how fast I need to go to maintain expansion mode. Notice also that I am not breathing "20-30" times per second to notice each sensation, no, I only breathe as fast as I need to to stay in expanion mode. The sensations themselves do not directly affect how quickly you need to do this. This rate at which I need to go at depends on what stage of insight I am in. In Re-Observation for example, you basically need to "slow down" and let go of the older layer of sensations that you are meditating on and notice more broadly the deeper layer that you are missing. In this stage the older layer starts to happen by itself and you need to re-observe the new layer that is forcing you to contract. (Hence, Re-Observation). 

I will write a more detailed expanation of how this works because you're right in that I did not explain the mechanism itself in more detail. It just to me feels so intuitive that I don't know how some people don't get it.

I never wrote in my previous posts about this but I actually figured out this mechanism when I managed to just hold expansion mode for like 30 seconds without breathing or doing anything 2 days after I started meditating.

It actually felt so empty (lol) and without any feedback mechanism that it felt wrong at the time and I wasn't sure if it was accurate or not so I just proceeded to do what else I thought was correct at the time (noticing the sensations of vision, hearing etc.) which turned out to be completely incorrect because again what specifically you notice doesn't matter as long as you are in this state of turned off DMN/PCC  (expansion). 

5.

I tried something similiar initially when I didn't know what I was doing and it was hard, sure. Exhausting even, because it required to switch between objects quickly but still ignore reality for said objects. This isn't related to meditation, but to concentration and jhana practice. You're basically trying to look for objects to focus on in consciousness. As you said, I don't think this is how it works. This is like saying how would you feel if you did cardio while working out and lifting weight. Of course this would be difficult, but not because the player himself sucks at either cardio or lifting weight, but because those 2 areas are mutually exclusive and by definition shouldn't be done together. 

"But in short, pick an object (your breath) and use it as a metronome to stay in what we call "expansion mode". This is where everything feels quite, is being observed, and there is this large feeling of tension that eventually gets quite uncomfortable that will force you to go back into "contraction mode", where things feel loud and unsatisfying. "

For what it's worth, I feel like this approach maintains a sense of controlling experience. It probably also maintains a tendency to stay in 1st Jhana, which is the sense of maintaining light but consistent effort to stay mindful. 

But that comment is worth what you paid for it!

There is nothing inherently wrong with contraction... maybe the feeling that things are loud and unsatisfying is only the initial experience of contraction, maybe there is something beyond that initial negative aspect of contraction?

What happens if you allow the body to breathe itself for an hour?

4th Path Experience - So far

Hi,

So I was waiting to save this post for until after enlightenment, however it's now been way too long and despite my best effort to write as best as I could about everything that I experienced I still got people telling me that my descriptions of phenomenology were dry so I decided to write what I experienced since then.

Ok, so to start

We go back all the way to last year in August. This has been so damn long ago I can't believe that there were some things that I believed to be true or didn't understand completely, even though as a whole my understanding is the same but because it's been so long without any new insight it shocks me that there was a time where I was meditating and still could possibly get new insights (about how to meditate).

A bit of context on how this works so it makes it more understandable to read. For 1st, 2nd and 3rd Path, you had to complete 1 large cycle of insight of each path in their respective territories to get the said path. So for 1st, I had to get 1st Path cessation, then for 2nd, I needed to get the 2nd path territory cycle of insight cessation, and same for 3rd. However, unlike the first 3 paths, 4th path works completely differently. In this case, there is no longer what people would consider 'Review" where you can go and meditate on the path of the previous territory without progressing, and no big cycle of insight that you need to complete for 4th path.

Instead, 4th path consists of thousands of small cycles, each lasting the same amount of time as "Review" cycles of previous paths, around 30-45 minutes each. They're short, happen quickly, and because after completion a small amount layer of sensations gets permanently added to your reservoir, they slowly nudge you on to 4th path. So I would get around 10-15 cessations per day if I meditate for 4-6 hours a day, or maybe 3-6 cessations if I do 1 or 2 hours plus off-the-cushion meditation. This basically guarantees that you will slowly progress, unlike in 1st path, where if you failed to get past re-observation then you would get sent back to A&P. In these smaller cycles, you can't progress backwards, so every time you stay in "Choiceless awareness" (I call it expansion nowadays) you will progress. I always realised that what I was talking about when I said the words "Choiceless awareness" was actually commonly referred to expansion and the opposite of which contraction. I heard of these terms before and that they were important but for some reason it took me so long to actual get that this is what those terms meant. I already understood this mechanism directly, but intellectually I didn't, which is interesting. Further shows you don't need to understand what you're even doing to progress. You repeat this over and over and slowly nudge your way to the final jump. Now to the actual experiences:

I have some notes up here that I wrote so I don't forget what happened. 

1-4 August - I as per usual, enjoyed my first few days of 3rd path and the nice satisfying it brought with it. 
On the 4th, without any formal meditation practice yet, I experienced my first "kundalini experience". In short, these are significant fruitions post cessation that feel 100x better than a normal fruition and supposedly feel what enlightenment truly feels like, but temporarily for just a moment up to around 15 seconds for me where the glow of the kundalini slowly tapers off. 
4-8 August -  I felt like trash because the eventual feel good feeling wore off so and since I didn't meditate much still I was feeling not so good. 
9th August - Probably the most important decision that I made, which now feels such a long time ago that I'm surprised it even happened. I still had this idea that to "correctly" meditate you need to sit down. However, I realised this day that there is obviously no distinction between sitting, standing, running or whatever, your body doesn't care, as long as you are paying attention and being in "Choiceless awareness". I also tried Strong Determination Sitting at some point before or after 1st Path twice. The first time I injured my knee which hurt for a month afterwards. The second time my body got covered in red spots from the pain and none of the experiences actually helped me to meditate because I just couldn't focus and instead just sat there trying not to move. 

I got the fantastic idea of just laying down instead of sitting. What a wonderful idea. At this point, 6 hours a day of laying down meditation and not bothering to think about what my body does was one of my greatest decisions I made. It felt like it just made things ten times easier. I would not recommend doing SDS or trying to put yourself in any position you don't like. It's just unnecessary torture that doesn't strike at the root of the problem, which is that you need to meditate, not suffer for no reason.

11 August - 26 August - I had a good streak where I didn't binge anything and went to bed on time etc.

26- 1st September - Only 2-3 hours a day of meditation

1-9th - September - No meditation (I don't know what I felt here at this point, I just put notes down when I had good progress due to lack of binging or not. I just know it wasn't relevant because overall the way I felt and meditated has not changed in anyway. However, my understanding of the stages of insight finally got up to speed because I was finally able to cycle them regularly.

I also started counting both the small cycle fruitions that I experienced as well as the total kundalini experiences that I felt. Yes, I did keep a counter and it wasn't actually that difficult.

It was interesting to note that I started experiencing a kundalini experience once a day, and always at least one a day. I distinctly noted at some point that I had a streak of 41 kundalinis daily only one day of which did not have one. At some point a few months ago I stopped experiencing them daily and it suddenly started becoming a biweekly occurrence as opposed to something I would've guaranteed felt daily.

Here is the rest of the notes (I don't want to comment on all of them lol)

11 September - Felt close - This is where I genuinely thought that I was close to 4th path because my momentum was high. However, as you meditate further the little tiny amount that is left suddenly becomes quite massive and it no longer feels close at all. These are what Daniel Ingram referred to as "12 path cycles". These are large, long in duration periods of happiness followed by misery and agony that would alternate every few weeks. However, I felt that they were actual cycles because they didn't have any cessations or actual stages of insights associated with them so I just shrug it off as experiences. Only after these happened like 8 times, with each progressive depressive phase making me feel even more miserable (despite the stage of insight) that I realised there was some pattern here.

15 September - Felt very close 
20 September - 15th Kundalini   - Significant
21 September - 16th Kundalini - Very significant
These two were one of my biggest kundalinis ever and were truly magnificent. Each one felt special but these had the intensity last for 10 seconds or more without much fade out which an average kundalini would last maybe 1 second each and then immediately disappear. 


22 September - 17th Kundalini
10 October - Quit again
10 October - 19 November - Amazing Streak
2 November - Started feeling happier, felt Fear, Misery, Disgust better, Dark Nights got worse

Around this time in November for the first time did I get a glimpse of what each stage of insight felt like: I'll explain each one in detail as I would characterize it now.

A&P - In this stage you feel good happy, usually contract into a nostalgic memory of a childhood video game that I played as kid and had no worry about anything. Due to the nature of your consciousness "booting up" after a cessation what this translates in practice is that you can continue the high momentum and expansion of equanimity for a moment but then exponentially the sensations that your body perceives as still "self" (and therefore you contract into), suddenly start reappearing quickly until you eventually contract due to the inability to keep up. This is inevitable, don't worry. It's just part of the process. 

Dissolution - This is interesting because this stage ended up changing for me after 3rd path. Before it felt gloomy but here as my brain booted back up from the cessation the sensations that force me to contract would eventually overwhelm me and I would contract for as little as a second to a few minutes. By the time I realise that it happened I would also be passed this stage (I think, in practice it didn't reality occur). This is because the Dissolution stage is itself when I am contracting. It's called dissolution because the sensations that force you to contract and create a feeling of self suddenly stop occurring (dissolution of self). When that happens. you are in Fear at this point and staying in expansion becomes viable again, as only the sensations that are within your reach become available. 

Fear - This was the last stage I that I finally figured out what it felt like. This stage is associated with (in my case) Japanese words. You see, I am planning on learning Japanese correctly so that I sound like a native (through listening only). However, I did some incorrect methods before so I am trying to forget about everything I learned and sound from scratch. When in this stage, I would consistently contract into random Japanese words and I would be like "Fuck, why did I think this?" and then try to somehow not contract and change my thoughts but that would just further cause contraction in those words. The correct approach is to just continue meditating. In this case I would say I have a Fear of not being able to forget these words. I also associated this stage with thinking about university, but that happened quite infrequently. Every time I would get a random Japanese word, then I would know that I am in this stage. It's important to note that these stages of insight dictate what you think and how you feel to the letter. I could predict with 99.99% accuracy what stage I'm in just by thinking about what I'm contracting into. And no matter how I felt about something in one stage, I would almost never have those thoughts in other stages, which was a profound insight.

Misery - This is the second last stage I figured out. This stage is associated with thinking about something that I can't change about the world and generally being upset about something that otherwise wouldn't upset me. For example, some of the things that I thought/felt were:

-Being upset that a part of my long hair got into a knot and ripped apart (not even at the root) and I was upset my hair was permanently slightly off (even though it would literally grow back)
-Being upset that I didn't get enough sleep a few years ago, therefore permanently shortening my life by a few seconds.
-Being upset about scars on my hands that I got for life and would never heal, thereby never having youthful, "perfect" hands again.
-Being upset that my cat is (was) eating from a plastic plate, meaning that he ate plastics and would've died faster. 
-Being upset that no matter what I do, other people will still die and suffer.
-Being upset about other people's problems that I couldn't fix them. (I literally started thinking about other people because my own personal life has no problems at all) 

Disgust -
Third last stage I figured out. This stage is filled with disgusting thoughts, as you would expect. I wouldn't even say them here to be honest. However, there were also other things that would also occur. For example, if I was arguing with people, either in real life or in my head, or even to myself, or explaining things to people, then that would be a clear indicator of being in Disgust (Being disgusted with other people, trying to help them?). Again, these would always be a clear indicator of this stage. I would never argue with others or explain things to people in other stages of insight.

Desire for Deliverance - This stage feels the most emotionally uncomfortable for me.  It's where you think about something that could've happened and think "Damn, why didn't it happen?" followed by this distinct feeling of despair and misery wishing it was the other way. The key indicator if I am in this stage is politics. Anything political always goes in this stage, and never outside of it. Though due to the nature of this topic, I won't go any further in detail. 

Re-Observation - The most unique and import stage. In this stage, there is no specific thought associated, just the feeling of panic and inability to let go of the layer of sensations that you were meditating on during this cycle and re-observe the new layer of sensations that is now being shoved into your consciousness. This is why meditating here is so difficult. because the way you were expanding previously no longer works so you are forced to just hold expansion mode (let go) and notice more broadly the present sensations that are now being shoved into your consciousness. You have to notice these before you can progress. 

Equanimity - In this stage things feel not good and not bad. There is also uniquely this distinct feeling of awareness present that is not present in other stages. As well as this, each sensation feels like it starts and ends at discrete points, unlike in previous stages where all stages blend together. You just need to keep going at this stage. Sometimes towards the end of equanimity I would have a happy feeling appearing, as if I am already cycling back into the A&P. After this I would universally have a cessation in a few seconds after this experience. 

It's important to note that I did not notice absolutely every stage of every single cycle that I did. I would often notice one stage, for example, Fear, and then continue meditating for 15 minutes, and I often would already be in DfD. These stages often pass very quickly and it's not clear if you passed them or not unless you know that you are already in a stage that is ahead of them. However, up until very recently, the fruition of each cessation already felt quite clear. Often, I would be in contraction because I was doing something. Then I would immediately think I need to meditate, slow down, expand in a broader fashion, as characteristic of Re-Observation, and within a few minutes I would get a cessation. This is a very common occurrence for me. 


~8 November - Felt 2 kundalinis in 10 seconds - On this day I had a very strange experience, I had a very strong kundalini and immediately 15-20 later I felt another one which was completely distinct from the previous one. And they were both quite intense. It was a surprise to me and it felt amazing. These always make it feel satisfying because they are a strong direct indicator that progress is happening. 

12 November - Felt 2 kundalnis in 15 minutes
26-28 November - Relapsed 2 days
4 December - Quit again
4 December - 27th January - Back and forth between binging and not binging. 
28th January - 8th February - Good streak

8th February - Felt heedlessness - Here I experienced I feeling of not being in my head. This sounds cryptic, but basically my body's sensations felt more pronounced than my head's and so it felt this way. I haven't had this feeling since then. 
10th - Realised expansion/contraction - Here I finally realised that what I was doing was called expansion/contraction. And a missing puzzle of what this meant was solved. 
14th - Binged
16th - Felt body lessness - Here I was walking on a treadmill in the gym and my momentum was quite high so I was passing cycles quickly with not much effort. Just had this feeling that my body was just walking on the treadmill by itself. Like looking at the first person POV of a character in a video game (CS2 comes to mind when they added visibility of legs to their POV) 

20th - Binged
20th - 26th - Good streak
26th - Binged
26th Feb - 1st March - Good streak
1st March - 8th March - Good streak
11th -12th March - Very difficult days - Here the aforementioned general phases of feeling bad (where all stages of insight feel terrible, just the A&P less so and the rest more so) and it felt quite difficult to meditate. I remember being slightly terrified because it feels like jumping into the unknown. The feeling is very reminiscent of what I felt when I had video game withdrawal 2 years ago that I wrote about in my post. Thought in this case I had hope that things would be fine so it definitely wasn't as bad. 
18-28 April - Good Streak

At this point I have had absolutely nothing new to share. I had a few more of these phases, which again Daniel Ingram referred to as "12 path" cycles (thought I never thought they were like paths to begin with) which became progressively worse as less and less of substance was left. 

May 31st - June 6th - Good streak

June 10th - 29th - Binged hard

I binged on and off, sometimes didn't check my phone for a few days and had good progress, sometimes looked at my phone first thing in the morning and didn't meditate one bit since stopping would be too painful at that point. Was around a 50/50, so the progress could be a lot better in theory if I was theoretically strict on this. 

July 1-4 - Binged
July 4-10 Binged Steam
July 10-12 - Streak
July 12-16 - Good streak (At this point I'm referring to going a few days with no internet as a good streak because going longer without a fix at this point feels like such a lack of stability that it's probably even more terrifying than my withdrawal from 2 years ago but without the hopelessness feeling. 
July 16-24 - Here I had another one of these bad 12th path cycles. I pulled 4 all nights in a week, two of which were back to back, meaning I didn't sleep for 2 days in a row, simply reloading X and YouTube over and over again. 
August was much of the same and I had another 12th cycle on the 12th August which lasted for a week.

In September I got accepted into University (finally!) so I started going to everyday.
Also, I did not mention this, but for some reason, during my whole childhood, I slept on average 11 hours a day (10.5 on a perfect schedule). After I started going every day, I immediately started sleeping 2.,5 hours les. As a health-conscious person, this was such a strange development because it had nothing to do with my meditation practice and I don't see how going to university changed anything about my life that I have to have slept 2.5 hours less (8-8.5 hours daily) over the past month. It's really strange. Nothing about my diet changed, and I'm not a child anymore. I turned 21 a few days earlier.

So now I have more time, but I go to University almost daily. The good part is that I seem to have less time to binge because I have to wake up every day and I can meditate at University at lectures so in effect my "off-the-cushion" practice is paying off more because I am doing it more than "on the cushion" practice that I would've done maybe 1 hour off of on my worst days binging. So, I am progressing faster.

So far so good. I have counted a total of 5308 cessations total, of which 194 were kundalini experiences total. Yes, I did count, and they should be quite accurate though I probably did miscount at some point last month since I had to do a lot of off-the-cushion practice would start and end abruptly. 

This is basically everything I've done. My assessment of 1st, 2nd, 3rd path have not changed. My phenomenology of those paths hasn't changed either. I didn't really experience much during those paths so I couldn't really describe much either. If someone says "This is way too weak of a description" I'm going to just stop posting because I honestly don't know what else I could possibly say. 

Jhana? Haven't tried. Magick? Haven't tried. Nirodha samapatti? Haven't tried. Pure abodes? Haven't tried. Psychedelics? Haven't tried. 

Interesting thing though is that since I drink a lot of water kefir, a fermented beverage, for health, I get drunk often due to it's alcohol content. And I never feel anything from it. I don't feel happier or better in any way whatsoever. So I find it difficult to relate to what other people say about how they feel and act when the drink because literally nothing happens to me and I don't understand the appeal. It just gives me a headache and my speech gets slurred. How could people drink alcohol and possibly say something that they don't want to say? How is that possible lol. Maybe that's an indication of how resistant my brain is in general to such effects. 

Cheers,

Andrew

@shargrol

I see where you're coming from but that's not it. It would be too obvious a distinction between jhana and non-jhana. Doing the same practice for 6 hours straight or whatever doesn't change how I feel at all. The first minute of this feels the same as the last minute, just in a difference in momentum so maintaining expansion mode and passing Re-Observation feels a lot easier and faster. I'm not solidifying the breath in any way, just using it as an anchor, a tool, to maintian expansion mode and a turned off DMN, which is what we want. Contraction is just being lost in content for however long. I did that my whole life and it didn't do me any good lol.

Also see my new post. 

@chrismarti

Interesting stuff, Shargrol. I'm now wondering: when, if ever, is it optimal in insight practice to "maintain [a] light but consistent effort to stay mindful"? 

After hitting Equanimity, I dropped noting, and I just watched the mind without labelling it. At the time, I felt like I had to maintain a "light but consistent effort" to keep watching the mind. If I stopped, it felt like I'd fall into dull distraction.

After doing that for a while, I realized that distraction is inevitable and not a signifier of insufficient effort. As a result, I applied a gentler amount of effort—but it was still a "light but consistent effort". 

Eventually, the focused state and the distracted state both became very clear—to the point that they were identical. At that juncture, I decided to stop efforting entirely, and any distinction between focused and distracted collapsed. No real practice remained, so you could call this "non-meditation." 

So, now I'm wondering: could I have "skipped over" this long period of applying "light but consistent effort"? Once I stopped noting and hit Equanimity, could I have just sat there, not trying, not hoping for any particular state of mind? Would mindfulness have naturally arisen, unbeckoned and undeserved? That certainly would've been easier. 

I'm genuinely unsure. I'm certain that, past a certain point, it's fine and optimal to just sit there without efforting. But I'm not sure how early that point comes. 

Perhaps all one needs is the intention to go wherever the mind takes them, and no actual effort is required in service of this intention. Perhaps it is conceited to believe that you can control, through effort, whether the mind is clear or not. Perhaps dull distraction is not a problem that needs to be, or can be, staved off. 

Yes.

Maintaining mindfulness engenders suffering. It's also normal, and human, to try to control where our mind goes and what it does. Seeing this is one of the insights that come to us. Wrapped up in this is the hubris of being "me," the one who manages "my" experience.

Taking this to its eventual conclusion, the nature of our pre-awakening perception relies on a deep, unrevealed assumption about the I/me/mine. When that assumption is seen and then let go of (that there is a hierarchy of perception with some being more important - governing, managing, controlling - than others), then we can see the flatness, the sheer equality, of our experiences. We find out that our assumptions about what is being perceived, what is doing the perceiving, where it is, and how it works, are illusory. It's all the same! We will never see the world in that former and "ignorant" way again.

BTW - this goes deeper than the initial realization of not-self. This cuts to the unseen hierarchy of things our mind has been using to create the lens through which we see/feel/hear/taste/touch/think.

My short answer, for what it's worth, is that maintaining light but consistent effort is important to get to the A&P. It's also important when gently digesting psychological material in the Dukka Nanas so that there isn't floundering. But that said, letting go of effort becomes more and more important to fully experience the dukka nanas and equanimity on the way to Stream Entry.  If someone doesn't maintain effort early on, they never quite develop the ability to do vipassina. But if someone maintains too much effort later on, then they never quite make peace with the dukka nanas (they still fight them/fear them) and they never full see how experience arises on its own and they are very unlikely to fall into cessation. 



Yes, that sounds about right. In equanimity especially, attention needs roam where it will go, while holding it all in awareness. This is very hard to describe but indeed the difference between focused and distracted does seem to go away, afterall both focus attention and distraction attention are experience within awareness!


Hard to say. I think only the meditator really knows. On one hand, "just letting go" sounds so easy, but on the other hand "just letting go" is also terrifying to the sense of self that isn't used to it. So I would say, we just have to be honest with ourselves on what is possible and to respect that we are where we are --- we can't jump ahead of ourselves.



I'm unsure too. I mean, yeah -- just watching wehre the mind goes is the ideal, but the reality is that most of the time we need some kind of "handhold" on experience to be able to experience it without totally freaking out. And this handhold gets smaller and smaller over time. That's what makes equanimity such a maddeningly long nana for most people. We're mostly fine in equanimity, but to get to SE we need to let go of that last little bit of control which usually takes a long time to happen. Afterall, that's why 100 day retreats at IMS exist, to allow for the time to get used to radically allowing experience to arise on its own. 

This is all extremely interesting, thanks guys. What follows is my attempt at distilling this for the past version of myself that was already established in Equanimity:

If you feel like you need effort as a foothold to stay in the present moment, that’s perfectly fine. But the truth is that you’re always experiencing the present moment, whether you’re distracted or not.

If you stop applying effort, you may feel yourself falling into dull distraction. If that scares you too much, it’s perfectly fine to resume using effort as a foothold. If you’re gentle, progress will come in time.

But if you’re ever feeling comfortable enough, try letting go of effort. See where that takes you. Abide in dullness and distraction. They’re not problems. Progress happens equally in distraction as it does in clarity. Do not worry about whether you’re being distracted “too much” or “for too long.” Intend to go wherever the mind takes you, even if it is deep into dullness. Do this for days and days; just keep following the mind. Let it lead you.

If you rest in the dullness for long enough, then ultimately the distinction between focus and distraction will collapse, leaving you with abiding clarity. Progress can come unbeckoned and undeserved.

I'd say the spirit of that is right, but of course we're talking a special kind of dullness here -- dullness known as dullness. Not dullness where I zone out completely and learn absolutely nothing.

Great clarification. I had huge anxiety about differentiating between these two for the longest time. I guess the best test is whether you know what's happening as it happens, even if the content of the experience is dullness and wandering thoughts and the typical obsessions. As opposed to not knowing what's happening as it happens, but only in retrospect. 

With that in mind, I think it follows that the point at which one can abandon effort, if comfortable, comes when one knows distraction as distraction.