so a little more than two weeks ago Id started and completed a new cycle, which left a big perceptual baseline change. this was actualy the third complete cycle but the second one was not great enough to call a path. so im going with the simple model and calling this third cycle 2nd path. I explained some of the details with kenneths and his guess is the same. so his instructions were to work on my jhanas while im in review. well id been doing that but already i feel im in new territory and its more disettling than any previous cycle. this tells me its third path. so, if any one has any advice, cool stories or instructions regarding third path please let me know. also, ive heard there are a great deal of cycles for third path. does this mean that im going to have to complete 20 plus new cycles before Ive had a huge shift? I look forward to hearing the great experience of the dho
love,metta,understanding, tashi delek

hi robert,

it would be useful to have a more detailed description of the new territory that has shown up, as well as a brief account of your style(s) and method(s) of practice (so as to know what has worked for you, what hasn't, and the ways in which your practice has shaped your view of the territory).

tarin

thanks for getting back to me so soon.
ok, so I was in a period of good concentration and popping fruitions whenever I focused for a minute. then after two weeks of mastering and enjoying this review territory, I started to notice unpleasant sensations very strongly, cycling through the old paths dark nights were a breeze. but the tension I was experiencing and inability to penetrate what felt like foriegn unfamiliar territory leads me to believe that Im in the first few nanas of a new path. another thing was i was noticing cause and effect and it seemed very unfamiliar.

would you mind detailing what this 'foreign unfamiliar territory' is like a bit more? i understand that it can be hard to put these fleeting experiences into words, but articulating them can shed some light on what the problem really is, as well as give others a perspective on which to comment and perhaps offer related experience or guidance if any seems appropriate.

Without lending any diagnosis,

I got to third path after third complete cycle. I could get Nirodha Samapatti, and also could perceive that the path was much more about seeing the truth of things now than going through more cycles.

However, what happened next was cycles and cycles and cycles, and as things cycled, more and more this was it, luminosity was it, emptiness was it, integration of the sense field was it, all a deepening of third path, as I map it.

Thus, from my point of view, the key is not how many cycles, really, as third path is just one more phase on the way to the final thing. The key is the shift to the nowness of the thing, which is a big paradigm shift. The more you naturally look to this being it, the close you are to realizing this is it.

Helpful?

Daniel

wow, that is just the sort of experience I was looking for someone to share. I posed the question without much discription of my own personal insight territory because I remember the hurricane ranch conversation and how third path was stated as being "a completely different animal than the first two". so I was looking for some sort of reframing of perspective than what Ive been working with. but today I decided to log my sit anyway.

jan 9th
all sessions are 20 min with a 2 min period in between to be mindful and log
1st
"Im not even concentrating "on anything" in particular and the entire field is vibrating and disapearing before I can say "click"
2nd
concentration was fuzzy and I started to notice the third nana arise but not all the way to a&p. then thoughts and tensions proliferated in awareness
3rd
with increased concentration physical sensations of excitement and anticipation became strong (due to events in daily life) along with some guilt fear and shame
4th
concentration went subtler yet again but towards the end got fuzzier and dream like. I was noticing extremely subtle subject patterns way in the previous background. this I believe is a new cycle coming forth, where session one was the old review. its as if im bordering a new a&p.
5th (was about 30 min or little longer)
I started with a metta practice that lead very quickly to the third samatta jhana (which has always bothered me through out my life. had many accidental trips there that scared me as a child). I then did yidam and guru yoga with the vipassana/dzogchen/witness perspective, so I was noticing even more subtle subject sensations (there so subtle that its actually just one or so formless sensations that somehow " imply or tie in" other sensations, which i guess is what makes the subject pattern) as there are much more going on since im practicing yidam and guru yoga. then I sat for a little while back in my subtle vipassana practice.

Im understanding this whole fractal thing a lot more, and how things just keep getting further back and wider and wider and wider

thanky you both Daniel and Tarin for your concern and assistance. you have both helped me progress many many many times that your not even aware of just from how youve both openly described your practice and what youve gone through.
love, metta, tashi delek

thanks for the descriptions, and you're welcome. based on what you've written, here's two things to consider:

when hints of new territory show up, pay close, moment-to-moment attention to the specifics of the patterns, picking out their bits and pieces for an increasingly detailed view. this can really enliven and awaken your mind,

i also recommend hanging out in the 3rd jhana more, paying attention to how it affects the qualities of your mind (noticing the sensations that make them up), as well as the specific bodily sensations, particularly ones that imply wideness or hollowness or fuzziness or some kind of distortion. what is cooling about this territory can be creepy, but what is creepy can be thrilling, which thrill can lead to surety can lead to equanimity.. its a matter of perspective (be sure to also notice the sensations that imply perspectival shifts). and as always, be sure to balance energy and tranquility so you're neither excessively jumpy/reactive or spacing out, either of which can cause you to miss the good stuff.

let us know if that's useful

tarin

thanks again tarin.
when i go into the third samatta jhana i get this buzzing in whats the "center" of perception. it really bugs me sometimes, and other times its pretty awsome, like another reality.

i have been feeling like im seeing through just about the whole picture. when i sit, i can make an effort and then ill see the subject sensations that were "making the effort" then the sensations that "saw through" and it just keeps going further and further back until i feel like all thats seen through and the percieving of emptiness and go from the front, to the back, upside down etc. very panoramic and with out a struggle, as long as im not in a conversation or jamming out to the radio in the car hahaha.

I seem to think the practice of vipassana is different for me now. im guessing this might be the emptiness ive heard you seasoned practicioners refer when talking about third path. its not like previously where i felt i was not seeing the whole picture in first and second. in first definitelly, and still in second i felt like it was only part of the fractal, but what im sensing now is a very wide complete seeing through, and of course i can see through the sensations implying that but it wont help me articulate this.

im also wondering if the nanas present themselves differently at third path, maybe in a more subtle background sort of way.
I sat the other day and was seeing through all these subject patterns in a new way very easily. then yesterday and today my concentration has been fuzzier and there has been quite a bit more of the buzzy, disconcerting sensations, and just an overall buzziness with my attention. it did not appear like the first two a&ps, much more inclusive and less rapturous. Im guessing that im dark nighting right now becuase I had a serious urge today to be in jhana. im pretty sure actually, all the signs are there, its just that the a&p presented it self so different this time around. has anyone had this experience, does it sound familiar?

If you are in third path territory, and without implying anything about that: cycles and cycles and cycles, big cycles, little cycles, interrupted cycles, cycles where you push forward, where you seem to retreat, cycles that lead nowhere, cycles that really shift things big-time, and more cycles.

Fuzzy stuff where you want jhana does ring very strongly Dark Night, but which one at that point can be nearly impossible to figure out and doesn't matter: if you are an anagami: either you saw things are empty, luminous, not you, not self, not other, natural, panoramic, clear, centerless, or you did not. That's the only game in town, really, and that's the challenge to the practicing anagami. Uncovering every single subtle and more subtle and more subtle and closer and more intimate and more you and more near and more vulnerable and more hidden layer of stuff that seems to be pretending to be subject and seeing it how it is: that's the job of the practicing anagami. It can be a long, complex, strange road with many plateaus and valleys along the way. Settling into and syncing with this moment, or better yet realizing it is already synced, regardless of how it presents or any of our ideals for it: that is the work of the practicing anagami.

Another question. forgive me if this sounds strange but im about to take a nap and it just occurred to me that this could be very important.
this is greatly directed at tarin but also you to daniel
just a few months after I was convinced id gotten stream entry and could prove it to myself with the criteria in mctb, I read on the old site tarins alternative for doing second path. and although i did make a lot of time for formal practice, i colored it with the technique he describes. this technique sounds very similar to what is suggested for third path and tarin even says that in the article. how would one go about 3rd then. if that was my practice for second (which is just a matter of rising through the cycle) would i just deepen it now, just go for seeing through the whole picture. I guess ive sorted answered my question a bit, but just out of curiosity how did you do third path tarin? just an extension and completion of what you practiced for 2nd. now my original question is actually sounding silly after processing it but please do tell what you did for third tarin

hi robert,

as what i did for 3rd path was more of the same (i went for seeing the whole picture, here and now), you did answer your own question after all.

i'll also add that the following things were useful: seeing the sensations that imply focus, that imply out-of-focus, that imply focusing, that imply looking, that imply perspective, that imply distortion, that imply distance, that imply duration, that imply directness of experience.. and of course, the usual suspects of sensations that imply things like space, super-space, emptiness, silence, luminosity, presence, etc etc.

daniel's advice in his most recent above post is spot on, come back to it and read it again periodically until you're confident you know what it means and thus can do it yourself (with the confidence that understanding instills).

and forget the notion that you have to sit to do this, if you really want to get it you should be doing it in everyday life.. sufficient obsession is sufficient. ok, good luck.

tarin

so, its been a couple weeks and heres whats happening.
Lots of cycles like everyone has said, but some are not whole cycles, some are only the second half, some the first, some skip around from being a little of this and a little of that. as for seeing sensations where they are I feel like I can do that at any time I choose. seeing "emptiness" in real time is one of my favorite things now, like fruitions. where I used to do a lot of the "phala samapati" or whatever that someone was talking about in another thread( getting in no dog and having repeated fruitions over and over again) I now like to do a lot of seeing reality here and now. It has a distinct feel to it that Im not ready to try to discribe but it also leads to a new fruition. this new fruition presents a couple of the doors more clearly and more like daniel describes them in mctb. it is a much wider entrance and its inclusiveness leaves a much heavier after glow than any have in the past. It feels like its incorporating the entire sensate field with many subtle stata. Another indicator that anagami could have been completed is that my experience of fruition and emptiness implies alot more mahamudra and dzogchenish kinds of things. Ive been much more fascinated with the "nature of the mind" and realizing that nature (which leads to noself cessations). however the joke is that Im a drikung kagyu vajrayana practitioner so that could come with the territory. Im also very fascinated with my new understanding and fruitions/emptiness and it feels much more lucid than first or second path. the seventh and eighth jhana are much easier to access right now also. If anyone would like to say something regarding this territory or give a diagnosis please do
love, metta, tashi delek

Realizing that I could be wrong, sounds very anagami-esque to me.

Good descriptions. I was also very fascinated with teachings on the fundamental nature of the mind then, and believe that is normal and expected.

I think I mention this somewhere in MCTB, but anyway, at some point I got to the place where, after each new full progress cycle and the new Fruition, I would feel done. Thoughts did their thing, body did its thing, field was wide open, clear, centerless, natural, and then period of time later, some disturbance would arise, some new layer of stuff, and then there would be more work to do, and the feeling of doneness would fade, and then a new cycle would be completed, and I felt really done again, and so on, time and time and time again.

sure. to me, this stands out to me as the most potentially interesting part of your report:



are you starting to get the sense that any place in the cycles can lead to any other place? if so, it may be telling of something. where is it that you must be, right now, if no matter where you are, you can get anywhere else from there directly? hint: it's only ever one possible place.

insight into this aspect of the thing reveals a level of clear seeing so inclusive that to merely call it 'wide' would fall far short. it won't be a matter of incorporating strata in the sense field anymore, it's more akin to seeing it all at once (including the sensations which have thus far implied seeing). eventually, this clear seeing will lead to dispassion, which in turn will effect release (the wisdom eye). this takes a degree of tranquility, but that is what the practice engenders (it comes with dispassion).

tarin

I've been reading this thread over and over and contemplating the information. I posted on another thread and it seems more appropriate here

Any advice about what they did to untangle the knot once and for all? An actual practice would be nice, I have found applying the 3 C's to whatever I'm trying to disembed/untangle has worked as long as I could see the object that was entangled clearly. I'm at a lack of finding a way to see selection with clarity so far. Any hints tips tricks and the results thereof would be great.
Thanks
~D