I've now picked up a more consistent practice after being stuck at re-observation for the last year or so. My experience is plagued by extreme neurosis, a restless indecisive mind, and ear worms. Every so often I crash through into equanimity and the mind becomes all inclusive, spacious, and well. The problem is this taste of equanimity doesn't last very long and i find myself thrown back into re-observation only to repeat the afformentioned cycle. This has been going on for some time. My question is how to stabilise equanimity and not revert back into re-observation? Thanks

It's not so much about how to stabilize Equanimity, but what led to it. Your mentioned cycle is a good indication for that - the mind needs to gather more information from Re-Observation. It needs to get what causes the transition. That's a visceral process and cannot be forced, just like Equanimity cannot be forced to stay.
You can imagine the cycling as a mill wheel. As long as the water keeps coming, the wheel will turn. And the water is practice that builds awareness. In the end, it's all about the mind becoming aware of greed, aversion, delusion. Hint: in Re-Observation it's mostly aversion.

Now, the question is: what do you practise, and is there anything, despite consistency, that can make it become more suitable to building awareness of greed, aversion, delusion?

Apart from your actual practise, you could ask yourself: how much am I trying to manipulatie my experience? Are earworms really a problem? Do I really have to get rid of them? Is an indecisive mind something to abandon? Is it something to hate, or can I develop some compassion and understanding towards it? Is it understandable that when it feels like I am being torn apart, the mind becomes neurotic, because it thinks it needs to do something about it and doesn't know what? And further: is the experience of being torn apart something you need to or even are able to avoid, especially when considering that the apparent development from Dark Night to Equanimity is a movement from narrow and contracted to open and spacious mind?

Or you could ask: what is missing? Am I aware of my surrounding? Could it be that what makes the mind contract is a sense of threat in the periohery? Could it be helpful to develop awareness of the periphery to develop towards open and spacious? If the periphery seems scary, where is the actual threat? Is it the feeling or the aversion to the feeling that makes you avoid it? Or you could notice something like: "a while ago, when I was in A&P, I felt great in this room...now it feels like I am being in danger... but I'm still just sitting here... the transition to EQ seems to make everything feel broad and spacious.... maybe I'm simply sitting in a necessary transition phase and precisely what occurs is what I need to be with..."
So I have no idea what you are practising, but from a jhanic perspective it's pretty straightforward: in 2nd, focus in the middle is perfect. In 3rd you get a sense of narrow surrounding and the middle feels difficult. In 4th that is resolved. That's it. If you learn to really be with narrow and difficult for a while, you win.

Theses are just some ideas, hopefully something is interesting for you.

It's worth checking at shargrols full backlog of stuff

https://shargrolpostscompilation.blogspot.com/

That's very insightful, thanks. I previously had this feeling that these neurotic patterns of seeking and aversion were in some sense beyond me and can't be forced/willed. It seems like they play themselves out, bang their heads of the wall and capitulate to then reveal EQ. I suppose only once you are completely aware of the defilements and can't reify and invest in them anymore can they fall away. It's quite torturous in a way.

Up until the A&P I practiced basic mindfulness breathing at the abdomen, mantra meditation and some breathwork. After hitting the dukkha nanas I dropped practice completely and suffered tremendously for nearly a year. Now I am practicing a mix of freestyle noting and body scan vipassana. Though I am basically self taught and never had any instruction so I imagine I'm missing a few bits...

​​​​​​​I appreciate the questions that you have listed, I am going to journal on them. Very enlightening...

This post was super helpful. I would beat myself up for cycling back to the DN, but I can now see it is necessary as I still have a lot of bullshit that needs to be cleaned up. It is a painstaking proccess though and it does feel like it is dragging on and on. I am expecting to just meditate my way through this, but surely other modalities are useful for dealing with hinderances and defilements? I am thinking of therapy, lifestyle changes, journalling etc. Can you share about your experience in the dukkha nanas, were you able to hit stream entry, did it take a while? 

​​​​​​​Thanks again

Well, I think viewing them as 'hindrances and defilements' makes them worse than they need to be. When you're on the cushion, what is actually so bad about being sleepy or restless or what have you? Perhaps they are unpleasant. Perhaps they create a weird solidity to them. Perhaps they generate thoughts like "oh I hate being sleepy, this is bad meditation!". But what is actually so bad about that that they warrant such a terrible notion as hindrance or defilement?

I found therapy to be useful myself.

I'm still in EQ, but I'd say I'm in a more stable/mature end of it (although that's my personal opinion). There are two tricks I used. When I was mostly in the DN and could occasionally come up for air in EQ I did a lot of this

One of the interesting things you'll notice if you do this, is it takes you to a 'spacious awareness'. I kept doing that until one time on retreat I was basically able to flip my default, so instead of being 'in my head' as my baseline, and occasionally feeling space, I was usually in space and occasionally 'in my head'. Then from there it really was, when these big feelings would come up, I'd tried to hold them in spacious awareness. A lot of times it was unpleasant, but what happens as you hold these things there for longer and longer is that first the aversion goes away, then the feelings of solidity go away (and with the solidity the felt sense of shittiness. hmm.....), then you see the raw sensation, and you know it's not too bad. As you keep doing this for more and more stuff, it keeps flipping over 'to the other side', and you are more and more equanimous more of the time.

Uh oh!  "Stabilize" is the main issue here my friend! There is nothing to stabilize here! Just keep noting in accordance with the tempo of the Stage at hand. If its EQ then just keep noting with THAT tempo (will arise on its own, nothing to do about it but note/clearly comprehend it). I would not drop Noting too soon! Actually, no need to drop noting all the way. But do drop that desire to stabilize anything Acceptance of it all just as it is!  ​​​​​​​Best wishes! 

EDIT to add; instead of dropping the urge to stabilize, just keep noting it and all its made of! Yes! Thats the way!  

I initially thought it wasn't the best wording. Maybe I should say "How to not revert into re-observation after touching equinimity?" Yes, acceptance of phenomona (which I'd also call EQ) has been growing here during practice along with sensory clarity. Concentration is not siper though. Thanks

Concentration at this stage is irrelevant at least in the way we look at concentration as in a very sharp clear seeing So let it spread wide and far, as far as it wants. 


"Maybe I should say "How to not revert into re-observation after touching equinimity?"  "

But you did use the wording correctly. You indeed are trying to "stabilize". DON'T

​​​​​​​Instead NOTE the sensations that make up that sentence above! Thats the safest ticket to ride! so look! "how ... to ... not ... revert ... into ... re-observation ... after ... touching ... equanimity ..." look at all the sensate stuff that makes that experience! DO NOT CLING TO EQUANIMITY!  

Bets wishes! (you can do this) ... acceptance, loving acceptance of all fear of losing stuff like equanimity etc ... its all good! 

Kenneth Folk's Essence Noting is a nice combo: you're still doing some kind of noting (*) but you're cultivating a positive mind-state (of open receptivity) while you're also practicing to embrace all incoming phenomena.

(*) sometimes jumping into noticing too early in EQ is not a good idea. Any level of concentration you achieve could quickly transition into dullness, and subsequently into DN

Think of samsara as a way in which we relate to our sensory environment.

Our relationship is characterised by mental positions or postures or stances.

In the dukkha nanas we discover these stances.

For example the experience of fear comes about when we hold a particular stance. When awareness meets its objects in a particular way. I like to use the word expectation. When awareness meets its objects with an expectation of outcomes either good or bad - the result is the affective response of fear.

By accepting the dukkthenanas as a learning classroom, and denying the urge to 'hack' the dukkha nanas, we actually get a lot of knowledge which carries us into equanimity.

So to stabilize equanimity, accept and make a sincere attempt to learn from fear, misery, disgust, desperation. This learning is rock solid if you approach it as a student rather than as a hacker.

​​​​​​​Hope this helps. 

Yes this helps. It's good to make a resolve to learn from these feelings and textures, because I think we can all be prone to trying to brush them out the way.