Hi all. I was wondering if some of you later path people could comment on whether you feel that your DN experiences got worse in attaining later paths? My second path one is killing me compared with first so I'd be interested to know. Also, it's useful info in planning practise for later paths.
Thanks a lot, Jacki.

Hi Jacki,

Only if there is a lack of 'seeing' what is occurring is there a subjective reaction of 'dark night' for both pre and post 'paths' as talked of in pragmatic dharma circles. Some questions to investigate if you feel the pull to cease the arising of such mental dukkha:

Why are there such 'emotions' arising? What is the cause for such unsatisfactoriness? How does its cessation come about? What if i investigate what an 'emotion' really is? What is it made up of? Sensations? Mental overlay of what? Craving for a resolution to a desire? What if I develop a different mental overlay with the sensations? An equanimous one? What if i continue to pull apart the subjective experience of the 'emotion' and see why it is arising? What is triggering such a subjective experience? What is being ignored or overlooked, not seen for such a "2nd path, 3rd path, 4th path post 4th path etc dark night" to arise?

Why is there such a fabricated subject/object process still arising?Who got 2nd path? What got 2nd path? What changed? Why is there still suffering? To be free of the fabricated nature of the fabricated subject/object experience, what needs to be investigated?

Investigate why there is the arising of dukkha and see how its cessation comes about. Are you doing this now? Because whatever slight change may occur to the subjective experience of Jacki at whatever ' future path' after some infamous 'blip', if one isn't investigating the above, the same 'dark' shit will keep occurring. At what is called 4th path in pragmatic circles, people talk of it becoming 'sticky-free' thus Daniel's notion that an arhat can experience all these emotions, even the darker ones. . But it keeps on coming around and around and around, simply sticky-free. Even in a "non-dual" flow of mind there is this 'subject/object' reaction going on, just simply seen as perhaps 'object/object reaction, but still why is this reaction still occurring? What is not seen? Why not simply start investigating why the 'dark night' still arises now 4 noble truths style instead of simply accepting that it will occur at other stages down your path? What is the very cause of it all?

My 2 cents.

Nick

How do you go about investigating why an emotion is arising?

As far as I currently see it, the compounding of an 'emotion' arises due to unseen triggers. Those triggers are the way the mind creates/fabricates 'objects' from the entire field of experience to then establish a subjective relationship with. An emotion is a reaction towards the evaluation of an 'object' or 'objects' the mind has fabricated.

An 'object' can be made of any sense contact (sight, sound, taste, touch (surface and within), smell and thought). When no 'objects' are made of sense contact, then the experience is one of non-segregating (no 'objects') awareness, a soup of sensations/sense contact free of 'objects' being fabricated. No mental labels given to floating empty atoms. They do not inherently exist as these 'things' or 'concepts' which are habitually given to compounding phenomena.

If there are no 'objects' being created for the mind, there are no longer any subjective reactions to mentioned 'objects'. Subjective reactions can go through various baseline shifts as one progresses. A tangibly felt sense of 'self', emotions, affect of all kind, being, presence, shadow being, a rumbling reaction within the chest/throat/stomach etc. All subjective reactions establishing a relationship, pleasant, unpleasant or neutral with a conceived 'object'.

Eg. Someone shouts an insult at you. The sound of the words hit the ear door, the sounds become an 'object' for consciousness to land on. The evaluation and thought of 'that is insulting' becomes yet another 'object' for consciousness to land on. An evaluation occurs, name and form, a subjective reaction takes place. Depending on your baseline, a full affective emotion arises to establish a relationship of aversion towards the 'insult' which has become an 'object', or perhaps your baseline has simply a rumbling of tense sensations in the chest arise. This rumbling tension is still a subjective reaction to the 'object' that has been conceived in the mind.

But if one trains the mind bahiya style, seeing in the seen, hearing in the heard, no such 'objects' are created. The words of insult are not 'objectified' to be reacted towards subjectively. They are simply sounds being heard in the heard. A non-fashioning , non-fabricating, no 'objects' equanimity. The ultimate equanimity according to the suttas, that trumps the first two types, equanimity of multiplicity and equanimity purified by 4th jhana , both fabricated and fashioned.

See how the mind fabricates the 'object' , its accompanying 'subjective' reaction and investigate this 'subject/object' relationship rather than just simply developing an equanimous subjective reaction, and one will also see how the cessation of such fabrications of mind comes about.

Note: Even the subjective experience can be made into an 'object' (which ultimately it also is) giving the impression there is no subject anymore. Yet there is still the subject/object (or object/object) reaction taking place. It just becomes 'sticky-free'.

My 2 cents,

Nick

Hi Nick

This has me a bit confused. When you say "seeing" in the seen , does it mean that we recognize that the process of seeing is happening ? I think the original text reads like "In reference to the seen, there will be only the seen. In reference to the heard, only the heard." - and this kind of means that in the entire process of visual functioning one tries and makes a conscious effort to see the actual stuff happening behind some sort of a fabricated "veil" as distinct from trying to make a conscious effort to recognize that only seeing is happening. Maybe you mean differently , so can you clarify further where precisely should the focus be while practicing Bahiya style ? Thanks.

- Shashank

Thanks for the explanation. The theory is clear to me, but the mechanics of investigating why a particular emotion is arising is still murky. I'd be interested to hear how that works in your own practice, if you're prepared to share.

As far I see in my own experience it is simply continuous recognition of an unfabricated awareness.

There is no conscious 'effort' in bahiya style as I see it. 'Effort' smacks of 'trying' to achieve a result i.e. desire. Though there is an 'effort' to calm the mind to be able to drop this very same 'effort'. From a calm and serene mind, one can drop 'effort' and simply cognise seeing, hearing, cognising etc without any manipulating /fabricating going on. This is what I consider bahiya style.

How does one see past the veil of 'effort' and 'trying' which are fabricated ways of mental focus? Tricky business. One has to fabricate the way the mind calms and becomes serene first to then be able to drop all fabricating tendencies. The wholesome fabrications are the vehicle to get to a place whee the very same farbications, their causes and cessation are seen clearly. You see the causes, and the effects come crashing down. Thus we have the jhanas, fabricated 'objects (the jhana factors), which allow the mind to see how to drop it all.

Nick

Yes, as I said, it probably should be something each person should investigate themselves from a place of calm, serene well-being. How to see how the mind does 'objectify' and thus segregate 'parts' of the field of experience to then establish a subjective reaction towards?

First things first, fabricate that calm, serene sense of well-being, whether via jhanas or some other way. Then turn all curiosity towards how consciousness seems to automatically land on 'objects', how it segregates and conceives 'parts' of the whole field of experience. What if one turns to simply experiencing the 'whole field of experience' as it is without sectioning out 'parts'?

Perhaps all that one needs is to simply have the intention to simply see this 'objectification' in action from that calm, serene and stable mental state. I have used mainly the arupa jhanas as conceived 'objects' (space, nothingness, infinite consciousness and neither perception nor nonperception) to see how they are 'object', what happens when there is no more desire for them, what happens when there is no more 'objects' to cling to after the 8th (or even something that may follow what follows the 8th which is more a themeless state, but 'themeless' is still an 'object' of consciousness).

Edit: also this particualr technique showed me how the mind would habitually seek out and create an 'object' for consciousness to land on, and how I could relinquish such a strong habitual tendency and then apply it not just to the realm of sight, but to all sense contact.

http://thehamiltonproject.blogspot.com.au/2012/05/yogi-toolbox-floaters.html

Thanks for the pointers Nick.

Everything that arises in the mind is caused by desire and aversion.

The way it has worked for me is to arouse desire and aversion again and again and then let them pass and try to be aware of them. Normal life gives me only that many chances to put desire and aversion under the microscope and even then, it can be tricky to be mindful during those times. So I use deity visualization to arouse desire and aversion again and again. Having more chances to put the arising of the mind under the microscope gives me better chance to investigate.

Jacki, When did you get 1st path? I missed it. Regardless, congrats.

Nikolai ---- thanks for that. i'm not confident i completely understand what you're saying so perhaps if i could give you an example, then you could explain.... OK so person A is pissed at person B because: person A believes person B caused psychological damage to person A when a very young child and therefor did deep and permanent damage to person A which continues to cause ongoing difficulties in the life of person A .... hope that makes sense

Russell --- thank you. on 26th feb, confirmed by my teachers

Edit --- still interested to know if people experienced less extreme or more extreme dukkha in later paths

Thanks, sounds like an interesting avenue to explore.

Hi Jacki,

Person A acted and affected Person B. Person B was hurt by Person A. Fact.

Person B holds the image and event of hurt as an 'object' in the mind, a thought of the event and 'person A', perhaps also 'tension' felt within the body as well, all conceived as 'objects' for consciousness to continually land on and continually be evaluated and reacted to as bad for 'me', the subjective experience. So the psychological damage seems to persist long after the event that triggered it because the deeply engrained habit of the mind is to conceive of 'objects' for the mind to then react towards subjectively. The unsatisfactory self-narrative is thus fueled: "Person A needs to rot in hell, and 'I' am still suffering because of his/her actions!"

The 'object' of consciousness can be many things, a thought, a memory, a sensation, some 'object' within eye sight, and they can trigger eachother to arise, becoming 'objects' for consciousness to land on. Ultimately, they are all impermanent, impersonal non-inherently existing phenomena that when taken as 'object' for consciousness to land on and evaluate and react subjectively towards (via a variety of ways depending on baseline of mind), causes untold dukkha, unsatisfactoriness.

'I' experienced dukkha even post-4th (as talked of here) and at times quite gnarly 'dark nights' though they became 'sticky-free' and would not last as long as before. Kenneth Folk at 'technical' 3rd path (as talked of in pragmatic circles) suffered a a horrible depression. I never really looked at the cause for the arising of unsatisfactoriness seriously till post 4th (as talked of in pragmatic circles). If I could do things differently, I'd have started much much earlier.

Nick

Jacki, To directly answer your question about 2nd path DN. I had some rough spots but it was very fast compared to 1st path. Everyone is deferent. Like Nick said, I have heard of people having wicked DN going up to 3rd path. I'll let you know soon

Thankyou Nick. I have been thinking about what you wrote and it is making sense. i shall endeavour to clearly see these objects and remind myself of the three C's in relation to them. i think that noting helps one get a sense of the inherent non-existence of such objects. however there is a sort of seemingly permanent shape to them that the body carries around and is hard to dislodge or see as not empty, not-self, impermanent... so the thoughts return when one is vulnerable, such as in DN

Jacki.

Russell and Nick, thanks for your info on your experiences. And thanks Nick for the info re Kenneth. Frankly it is kind of scary that even on third path there can be so much suffering. Jacki.

Maybe it wasn't the true blue anagami stage, free from the fetters of ill will and sensual craving (and thus 'depression)? Maybe the mind was not malleable, pliant and luminous enough? Maybe the very cause of suffering went unaddressed, unseen? Maybe one might not call it what it was previously called?